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SAN  DIEGO 


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Illustrated  Sterling  edition 


THE    LAST    VENDEE 

OR,   THE 

SHE-WOLVES    OF    MACHECOUL 

TWO    VOLUMES    IN    ONE 
BY 

ALEXANDRE    DUMAS 

ILLUSTRATED 


BOSTON 
DANA   ESTES   &   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,    i8ç4, 
By  Estes  and  Lauriat. 


CONTENTS. 


Paob 

I.    Charette's  Aide-de-camp 9 

IL     The  Gratitude  of  Kings 18 

III.  The  Twins 26 

IV.  How  Jean  Oullier,  coming  to  see  the  Mar- 

quis for  an  Hour,  would  be  there  still 
if  they  had  not  both  been  in  their  Grave 

these  ten  years 34 

V.     A  Litter  of  Wolves 42 

VI.     The  Wounded  Hare 50 

VII.     Monsieur  Michel 58 

VIII.     The  Baronne  de  la  Logerie 66 

IX.    Galon-d'or  and  Allégro 76 

X.     In  which  Things  do  not  Happen  precisely  as 

Baron  Michel  Dreamed  they  would    .     .  86 

XL     The  Foster-father 95 

XII.    Noblesse  Oblige 104 

Xin.    A  Distant  Cousin 114 

XIV.     Petit-Pierre 124 

XV.    An  Unseasonable  Hour 137 

XVI.    Courtin's  Diplomacy 148 

XVII.     The  Tavern  of  Aubin  Courte-Joie  .     .     .     .  156 

XVIII.     The  Man  from  La  Logekie 165 

XIX.     The  Fair  at  Mont  aigu 177 

XX.     The  Outbreak 184 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


Paqb 

XXI.     Jean  Oullier's  Resources 19G 

XXII.     Fetch!  Pataud,  fetch! 207 

XXIII.  To  whom  the  Cottage  belonged  ....  214 

XXIV.  How  Marianne  Picaut  mourned  her  Hus- 

band       222 

XXV.    In  which  Love  lends  Political  Opinions 

to  those  who  have  none 227 

XXVI.     The  Springs  op  Baugé 235 

XXVH.     The  Guests  at  Souday 247 

XXVIII.     In  which  the  Marquis  de  Souday  bitterly 
regrets   that   petit-pierre   is    not   a 

Gentleman 256 

XXIX.     The  Vendéans  of  1832 263 

XXX.     The  Warning 269 

XXXI.    My  Old  Crony  Loriot 276 

XXXII.     The   General  eats   a   Supper  which  had 

not  been  Prepared  for  him     ....  285 

XXXIII.  In  which  Maître  Loriot's  Curiosity  is  not 

EXACTLY   SATISFIED 291 

XXXIV.  The  Tower  Chamber 298 

XXXV.     Which    ends    quite    otherwise    than    as 

Mary  expected 306 

XXXVI.     Blue  and  White 316 

XXXVII.     Which  shows  that  it  is  not  for  Flies  only 

that  Spiders'  Webs  are  dangerous       .     327 
XXXVIII.     In  which  the  Daintiest  Foot  of  France 
and   of   Navarre   finds   that   Cinder- 
ella's Slipper  does  not  fit  it  as  well 

as  Seven-league  Boots 839 

XXXIX.     Petit-Pierre    makes    the    best    Meal   he 

ever  made  in  his  Life 347 

XL.     Equality  in  Death 362 

XLI.     The  Search 374 


CONTENTS. 


Vil 


Pagb 

XLII.     In  which  Jean  Oullier  speaks  his  mind 

ABOUT  YOUNG  BARON  MlCHEL    ....   385 

XLIII.     Baron  Michel  becomes  Bertha's  Aide-de- 
camp       398 

XLIV.     Maître  Jacques  and  his  Rabbits      .     .     .     405 
XLV.     The  Danger  of  Meeting  bad  Company  in 

the  Woods 420 

XLVI.     Maître    Jacques    proceeds    to    keep    the 

Oath  he  made  to  Aubin  Courte-Joie  .    431 


CONTENTS. 


Paob 

I.    In  which  it  appears  that  all  Jews  are  not 

from  Jerusalem,  nor  all  Turks  prom  Tunis        !» 
IL     Maître  Marc 22 

III.  How  Persons  travelled  in  the  Department 

of  the  Lower  Loire  in  May,  1832       .     .     .       27 

IV.  A  little  History  does  no  Harm 36 

V.    Petit-Pierre   resolves  on  keeping  a  Brave 

Heart  against  Misfortune 48 

VI.     How  Jean  Oullier  proved  that  when  the 

Wine  is  drawn  it  is  best  to  drink  it    .     .       55 
VII.     Herein   is    explained   how   and   why  Baron 

Michel  decided  to  go  to  Nantes  ....       65 
VIII.     The  Sheep,  returning  to  the  Fold,  tumbles 

into  a  Pit-fall 74 

IX.  Trigaud  proves  that  if  he  had  been  Her- 
cules HE  WOULD  PROBABLY  HAVE  ACCOM- 
PLISHED TWENTY-FOUR  LABORS  INSTEAD  OF 
TWELVE 84 

X.     Giving  the  Slip 99 

XI.     Mary   is   victorious   after   the  Manner  of 

Pyrrhus 115 

XII.     Baron  Michel  finds   an  Oak  instead  of  a 

Reed  on  which  to  lean 121 

XIII.     The  Last  Knights  of  Royalty 132 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


Paob 

XIV.    Jean  Oullier  lies  for  the  Good  of  the 

Cause 142 

XV.    Jailer  and  Prisoner  escape  together      .  148 

XVI.     The  Battlefield 157 

XVII.     After  the  Fight 164 

XVIII.     The  Chateau  de  la  Pénissière     ....  169 

XIX.     The  Moor  of  Bouaimé 179 

XX.     The   Firm    of   Aubin    Courte-Joie    &  Co. 

does  Honor  to  its  Partnership     .     .     .  190 
XXI.     In  which   Succor   comes   from   an   Unex- 
pected Quarter 200 

XXII.     On  the  Highway 210 

XXIII.  What  became  of  Jean  Oullier    ....  225 

XXIV.  Maître  Courtin's  Batteries 238 

XXV.    Madame    la    Baronne    de    la    Logerie, 

THINKING   TO    SERVE    HER    Son's    INTERESTS, 

SERVES    THOSE   OF    PETIT-PIERRE    ....  245 

XXVI.     Marches  and  Counter-marches   ....  255 
XXVII.     Michel's  Love  Affairs  seem  to  be  taking 

a  Happier  Turn 265 

XXVIII.     Showing   how   there   may   be   Fishermen 

and  Fishermen 277 

XXIX.     Interrogatories  and  Confrontings       .     .  284 
XXX.     We  again   meet   the   General,   and   find 

HE   IS   NOT    CHANGED 294 

XXXI.       COURTIN   MEETS   WITH  ANOTHER  DISAPPOINT- 
MENT           303 

XXXII.     The    Marquis     de     Souday     drags     for 

Oysters  and  brings  up  Picaut  ....  313 

XXXIII.  That  which  happened  in  Two  Dwellings  325 

XXXIV.  Courtin  fingers  at  last  his  Fifty  Thou- 

sand Francs 337 

XXXV.     The  Tavern  of  the  Grand  Saint-Jacques  347 


CONTENTS.  vii 

Page 

XXXVI.    Judas  and  Judas 355 

XXXVII.     An   Eye   for   an   Eye,   and   a   Tooth  for 

a  Tooth 365 

XXXVIII.     The  Red-Breeches 377 

XXXIX.     A  Wounded  Soul 384 

XL.     The  Chimney-back 393 

XLI.     Three  Broken  Hearts 400 

XLII.     God's  Executioner 407 

XLIIL  Shows  that  a  Man  with  Fifty  Thousand 
Francs  about  him  may  be  much  Embar- 
rassed    418 

EPILOGUE 429 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


VOL.  I. 

Page 

Portrait  op  Dumas Frontispiece 

Portrait  of  Charette 16 

Castle  Souday 134 

Portrait  of  Louis  XVIII 259 

Portrait  op  Dermoncourt 270 

VOL.  II. 

Portrait  of  Louis  Philippe 38 

Cathedral  op  Nantes 256 

Château  of  Nantes 404 


THE   LAST  VENDEE; 

OR, 

THE  SHE-WOLVES   OF  MACHECOUL, 

VOLUME  L 


THE   LAST   VENDEE; 


OR, 


THE    SHE- WOLVES    OF    MACHECOUL. 


I. 

charette's  aide-de-camp. 

If  you  ever  chanced,  dear  reader,  to  go  from  Nantes  to 
Bourgneuf  you  must,  before  reaching  Saint-Philbert,  have 
skirted  the  southern  corner  of  the  lake  of  Grand-Lieu,  and 
then,  continuing  your  way,  you  arrived,  at  the  end  of  one 
hour  or  two  hours,  according  to  whether  you  were  on 
foot  or  in.  a  carriage,  at  the  first  trees  of  the  forest  of 
Machecoul. 

There,  to  left  of  the  road,  among  a  fine  clump  of  trees 
belonging,  apparently,  to  the  forest  from  which  it  is  sepa- 
rated only  by  the  main  road,  you  must  have  seen  the  sharp 
points  of  two  slender  turrets  and  the  gray  roof  of  a  little 
castle  hidden  among  the  foliage. 

The  cracked  walls  of  this  manor-house,  its  broken  win- 
dows, and  its  damp  roofs  covered  with  wild  iris  and  para- 
site mosses,  gave  it,  in  spite  of  its  feudal  pretensions  and 
flanking  turrets,  so  forlorn  an  appearance  that  no  one  at  a 
passing  glance  would  envy  its  possessor,  were  it  not  for  its 
exquisite  situation  opposite  to  the  noble  trees  of  the  forest 
of  Machecoul,  the  verdant  billows  of  which  rose  on  the 
horizon  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach. 


10  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

Tn  1831,  tliis  little  castle  was  the  property  of  an  old 
nobleman  named  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  and  was  called, 
after  its  owner,  the  château  of  Souday. 

Let  us  now  make  known  the  owner,  having  described  the 
château. 

The  Marquis  de  Souday  was  the  sole  representative  and 
last  descendant  of  an  old  and  illustrious  Breton  family;  for 
the  lake  of  Grand-Lieu,  the  forest  of  Machecoul,  the  town 
of  Bourgneuf,  situated  in  that  part  of  France  now  called 
the  department  of  the  Loire-Interieure,  was  then  part  of 
the  province  of  Brittany,  before  the  division  of  France  into 
departments.  The  family  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday  had 
been,  in  former  times,  one  of  those  feudal  trees  with  endless 
branches  which  extended  themselves  over  the  whole  depart- 
ment; but  the  ancestors  of  the  marquis,  in  consequence  of 
spending  all  their  substance  to  appear  with  splendor  in  the 
coaches  of  the  king,  had,  little  by  little,  become  so  reduced 
and  shorn  of  their  branches  that  the  convulsions  of  1789 
happened  just  in  time  to  prevent  the  rotten  trunk  from 
falling  into  the  hands  of  the  sheriff;  in  fact,  they  pre- 
served it  for  an  end  more  in  keeping  with  its  former  glory. 

When  the  doom  of  the  Bastille  sounded,  and  the  demoli- 
tion of  the  old  house  of  the  kings  foreshadowed  the  over- 
throw of  royalty,  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  having  inherited, 
not  great  wealth,  —  for  nothing  of  that  was  left,  as  we  have 
said,  except  the  old  manor-house,  —  but  the  name  and  title 
of  his  father,  was  page  to  his  Boyal  Highness,  Monsieur  le 
Comte  de  Provence.  At  sixteen  —  that  was  then  his  time 
of  life  —  events  are  only  accidental  circumstances  ;  besides, 
it  would  have  been  extremely  difficult  for  any  youth  to 
keep  from  being  heedless  and  volatile  at  the  epicurean, 
voltairean,  and  constitutional  court  of  the  Luxembourg, 
where  egotism  elbowed  its  way  undisguisedly. 

It  was  M.  de  Souday  who  was  sent  to  the  place  de  Grève 
to  watch  for  the  moment  when  the  hangman  tightened  the 
rope  round  Favras's  neck,  and  the  latter,  by  drawing  his 
last  breath,   restored  his  Royal  Highness   to   his   normal 


CHARETTE'S    AIDE-DE-CAMr.  11 

peace  of  mind,  which  had  been  for  the  time  being  dis- 
turbed. The  page  had  returned  at  full  speed  to  the 
Luxembourg. 

"Monseigneur,  it  is  done,"  he  said. 

And  monseigneur,  in  his  clear,  fluty  voice,  cried  :  — 

"Come,  gentlemen,  to  supper!  to  supper!  " 

And  they  supped  as  if  a  brave  and  honorable  gentleman, 
who  had  given  his  life  a  sacrifice,  to  his  Royal  Highness, 
had  not  just  been  hanged  as  a  murderer  and  a  vagabond. 

Then  came  the  first  dark,  threatening  days  of  the  Revo- 
lution, the  publication  of  the  Red  Book,  Necker's  retire- 
ment, and  the  death  of  Mirabeau. 

One  day  —  it  was  the  22d  of  February,  1791  —  a  great 
crowd  surrounded  the  palace  of  the  Luxembourg.  Rumors 
were  spread.  Monsieur,  it  was  said,  meant  to  escape  and 
join  the  emigres  on  the  Rhine.  But  Monsieur  appeared  on 
the  balcony,  and  took  a  solemn  oath  never  to  leave  the  king. 

He  did,  in  fact,  start  with  the  king  on  the  21st  of  June, 
possibly  to  keep  his  word  never  to  leave  him.  But  he 
did  leave  him,  to  secure  his  own  safety,  and  reached  the 
frontier  tranquilly  with  his  companion,  the  Marquis 
d'Avaray,  while  Louis  XVI.  and  his  family  were  arrested 
at  Varennes. 

Our  young  page,  de  Souday,  thought  too  much  of  his 
reputation  as  a  man  of  fashion  to  stay  in  France,  although 
it  was  precisely  there  that  the  monarchy  needed  its  most 
zealous  supporters.  He  therefore  emigrated,  and  as  no 
one  paid  any  heed  to  a  page  only  eighteen  years  old,  he 
reached  Coblentz  safely  and  took  part  in  filling  up  the 
ranks  of  the  musketeers  who  were  then  being  remodelled 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine  under  the  orders  of  the 
Marquis  de  Montmorin.  During  the  first  royalist  strug- 
gles he  fought  bravely  under  the  three  Condés,  was  wounded 
before  Thionville,  and  then,  after  many  disappointments 
and  deceptions,  met  with  the  worst  of  all;  namely,  the 
disbanding  of  the  various  corps  of  émigrés,  — a  measure 
which  took  the  bread  out  of  the  mouths  of  so  many  poor 


12  THE    LAST   VENDEE. 

devils.  It  is  true  that  these  soldiers  were  serving  against 
France,  and  their  bread  was  baked  by  foreign  nations. 

The  Marquis  de  Souday  then  turned  his  eyes  toward 
Brittany  and  La  Vendée,  where  fighting  had  been  going 
on  for  the  last  two  years.  The  state  of  things  in  La 
Vendee  was  as  follows  :  — 

All  the  first  leaders  of  the  great  insurrection  were  dead. 
Cathélineau  was  killed  at  Vannes,  Lescure  at  Tremblay, 
Bonchamps  at  Chollet;  d'Elbée  had  been,  or  was  to  be, 
shot  at  Noirmoutiers  ;  and,  finally,  what  was  called  the 
Grand  Army  had  just  been  annihilated  in  Le  Mans. 

This  Grand  Army  had  been  defeated  at  Fontenay-le- 
Comte,  at  Saumur,  Torfou,  Laval,  and  Dol.  Nevertheless, 
it  had  gained  the  advantage  in  sixty  fights;  it  had  held  its 
own  against  all  the  forces  of  the  Republic,  commanded  suc- 
cessively by  Biron,  Rossignol,  Kléber,  and  Westermann. 
It  had  seen  its  homes  burned,  its  children  massacred,  its 
old  men  strangled.  Its  leaders  were  Cathélineau,  Henri 
de  la  Rochejaquelein,  Stofflet,  Bonchamps,  Forestier, 
d'Elbée,  Lescure,  Marigny,  and  Talmont.  In  spite  of  all 
vicissitudes  it  continued  faithful  to  its  king  when  the  rest 
of  "France  abandoned  him;  it  worshipped  its  God  when 
Paris  proclaimed  that  there  was  no  God.  Thanks  to  the 
loyalty  and  valor  of  this  army,  La  Vendée  won  the  right 
to  be  proclaimed  in  history  throughout  all  time  "the  land 
of  giants." 

Charette  and  la  Rochejaquelein  alone  were  left.  Charette 
had  a  few  soldiers;  la  Rochejaquelein  had  none. 

It  was  while  the  Grand  Army  was  being  slowly  destroyed 
in  Le  Mans  that  Charette,  appointed  commander-in-chief 
of  Lower  Poitou  and  seconded  by  the  Chevalier  de  Couëtu 
and  Jolly,  had  collected  his  little  army.  Charette,  at  the 
head  of  this  army,  and  la  Rochejaquelein,  followed  by  ten 
men  only,  met  near  Maulevrier.  Charette  instantly  per- 
ceived that  la  Rochejaquelein  came  as  a  general,  not  as  a 
soldier;  he  had  a  strong  sense  of  his  own  position,  and 
did  not  choose  to  share  his  command  with  any  one.     He 


chakette's  aide-de-camp.  13 

was  therefore  cold  and  haughty  in  manner,  and  went  to  his 
own  breakfast  without  even  asking  Rochejaquelein  to  share 
it  with  him. 

The  same  day  eight  hundred  men  left  Charette's  army 
and  placed  themselves  under  the  orders  of  la  Rochejaque- 
lein.    The  next  day  Charette  said  to  his  3roung  rival  :  — 

"I  start  for  Mortagne;  you  will  follow  me." 

"I  am  accustomed,"  replied  la  Rochejaquelein,  "not  to 
follow,  but  to  be  followed." 

He  parted  from  Charette,  and  left  him  to  operate  his 
army  as  he  pleased.  It  is  the  latter  whom  we  shall  now 
follow,  because  he  is  the  only  Vendéan  leader  whose  last 
efforts  and  death  are  connected  with  our  history. 

Louis  XVII.  was  dead,  and  on  the  26th  of  June,  1795, 
Louis  XVIII.  was  proclaimed  king  of  France  at  the  head- 
quarters at  Belleville.  On  the  15th  of  August,  1795,  — 
that  is  to  say,  two  months  after  the  date  of  this  proclama- 
tion, —  a  young  man  brought  Charette  a  letter  from  the 
new  king.  This  letter,  written  from  Verona,  and  dated 
July  8,  1795,  conferred  on  Charette  the  command  of  the 
royalist  army. 

Charette  wished  to  reply  by  the  same  young  messenger 
and  thank  the  king  for  the  honor  he  had  done  him  ;  but 
the  young  man  informed  the  general  that  he  had  re-entered 
Prance  to  stay  there  and  fight  there,  and  asked  that  the 
despatch  he  had  brought  might  serve  as  a  recommendation 
to  the  commander-in-chief.  Charette  immediately  attached 
him  to  his  person. 

This  young  messenger  was  no  other  than  Monsieur's 
former  page,  the  Marquis  de  Souday. 

As  he  withdrew  to  seek  some  rest,  after  doing  his  last 
sixty  miles  on  horseback,  the  marquis  came  upon  a  young 
guard,  who  was  five  or  six  years  older  than  himself,  and 
was  now  standing,  hat  in  hand,  and  looking  at  him  with 
affectionate  respect.  Souday  recognized  the  son  of  one  of 
his  father's  farmers,  with  whom  he  had  hunted  as  a  lad 
with  huge  satisfaction  ;  for  no  one  could  head  off  a  boar  as 


14  THE    LAST    VENDEE. 

well  or  urge  on  the  hounds  after  the  animal  was  turned 
with  sueh  vigor. 

"Hey!  Jean  Oullier,"  he  cried;  "is  that  you?" 

"Myself  in  person,  and  at  your  service,  monsieur  le 
marquis,"  answered  the  young  peasant. 

"Good  faith!  my  friend,  and  glad  enough,  too.  Are 
you  still  as  keen  a  huntsman?  " 

"Oh,  yes,  monsieur  le  marquis;  only,  just  now  it  is 
other  game  than  hoars  we  are  after." 

"Never  mind  that.  If  you  are  willing,  we  '11  hunt  this 
game  together  as  we  did  the  other." 

"That's  not  to  be  refused,  but  much  the  contrary,  mon- 
sieur le  marquis,"  returned  Jean  Oullier. 

From  that  moment  Jean  Oullier  was  attached  to  the 
Marquis  de  Souday,  just  as  the  marquis  was  attached  to 
Charette,  — that  is  to  say,  that  Jean  Oullier  was  the  aide- 
de-camp  of  the  aide-de-camp  of  the  commander-in-chief. 
Besides  his  talents  as  a  huntsman  he  was  a  valuable  man  in 
other  respects.  In  camping  he  was  good  for  everything. 
The  marquis  never  had  to  think  of  bed  or  victuals  ;  in  the 
worst  of  times  he  never  went  without  a  bit  of  bread,  a 
glass  of  water,  and  a  shake-down  of  straw,  which  in  La 
Vendée  was  a  luxury  the  commander-in-chief  himself  did 
not  always  enjoy. 

We  should  be  greatly  tempted  to  follow  Charette,  and 
consequently  our  young  hero,  on  one  of  the  many  adventu- 
rous expeditions  undertaken  by  the  royalist  general,  which 
won  him  the  reputation  of  being  the  greatest  partisan 
leader  the  world  has  seen  ;  but  history  is  a  seductive  siren, 
and  if  you  imprudently  obey  the  sign  she  makes  you  to 
follow  her,  there  is  no  knowing  where  you  will  be  led. 
We  must  simplify  our  tale  as  much  as  possible,  and  there- 
fore we  leave  to  others  the  opportunity  of  relating  the 
expedition  of  the  Comte  d'Artois  to  IToivmoutiers  and  the 
île  Dieu,  the  strange  conduct  of  the  prince,  who  remained 
three  weeks  within  sight  of  the  French  coast  without  land- 
ing, and  the  discouragement  of  the  royalist  army  when  it 


chakette's  aide-de-camp.  15 

saw  itself  abandoned  by  those  for  whom  it  had  fought  so 
gallantly  for  more  than  two  years. 

In  spite  of  which  discouragement,  however,  Charette  not 
long  after  won  his  terrible  victory  at  Les  Quatre  Chemins. 
It  was  his  last;  for  treachery  from  that  time  forth  took 
part  in  the  struggle.  De  Couëtu,  Charette's  right  arm,  his 
other  self  after  the  death  of  Jolly,  was  enticed  into  an 
ambush,  captured,  and  shot.  In  the  last  months  of  his 
life  Charette  could  not  take  a  single  step  without  his  adver- 
sary, whoever  he  was,  Hoche  or  Travot,  being  instantly 
informed  of   it. 

Surrounded  by  the  republican  troops,  hemmed  in  on  all 
sides,  pursued  day  and  night,  tracked  from  bush  to  bush, 
springing  from  ditch  to  ditch,  knowing  that  sooner  or  later 
he  was  certain  to  be  killed  in  some  encounter,  or,  if  taken, 
to  be  shot  on  the  spot,  —  without  shelter,  burnt  up  with 
fever,  dying  of  thirst,  half  famished,  not  daring  to  ask  at 
the  farmhouses  he  saw  for  a  little  water,  a  little  bread,  or 
a  little  straw,  ■ —  he  had  only  thirty -two  men  remaining  with 
him,  among  whom  were  the  Marquis  de  Souday  and  Jean 
Oullier,  when,  on  the  25th  of  March,  1796,  the  news  came 
that  four  republican  columns  were  marching  simultaneously 
against  him. 

"  Very  good,"  said  he;  "then  it  is  here,  on  this  spot,  that 
we  must  fight  to  the  death  and  sell  our  lives  dearly." 

The  spot  was  La  Prélinière,  in  the  parish  of  Saint-Sul- 
pice.  But  with  thirty -two  men  Charette  did  not  choose  to 
await  the  enemy;  he  went  to  meet  them.  At  La  Guyon- 
nières  he  met  General  Valentin  with  two  hundred  grena- 
diers and  chasseurs.  Charette's  position  was  a  good  one, 
and  he  intrenched  it.  There,  for  three  hours,  he  sustained 
the  charges  and  fire  of  two  hundred  republicans.  Twelve 
of  his  men  fell  around  him.  The  Army  of  the  Chouan- 
nerie, which  was  twenty-four  thousand  strong  when  M.  le 
Comte  d'Artois  lay  off  the  île  Dieu  without  landing,  was 
now  reduced  to  twenty  men. 

These   twenty  men  stood   firmly  around   their  general; 


16  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

not  one  even  thought  of  escape.  To  make  an  end  of  the 
business,  General  Valentin  took  a  musket  himself,  and  at 
the  head  of  the  hundred  and  eighty  men  remaining  to  him, 
he  charged  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet. 

Charette  was  wounded  by  a  ball  in  his  head,  and  three 
fingers  were  taken  off  by  a  sabre-cut.  He  was  about  to  be 
captured  when  an  Alsatian,  named  Pfeffer,  who  felt  more 
than  mere  devotion  to  Charette,  whom  he  worshipped,  took 
the  general's  plumed  hat,  gave  him  his,  and  saying,  "Go 
to  the  right;  they'll  follow  me,"  sprang  to  the  left  him- 
self. He  was  right;  the  republicans  rushed  after  him 
savagely,  while  Charette  sprang  in  the  opposite  direction 
with  his  fifteen  remaining  men. 

He  had  almost  reached  the  wood  of  La  Chabotière  when 
General  Travot's  column  appeared.  Another  and  more 
desperate  fight  took  place,  in  which  Charette's  sole  object 
was  to  get  himself  killed.  Losing  blood  from  three 
wounds,  he  staggered  and  fell.  A  Vendéan,  named  Bos- 
sard,  took  him  on  his  shoulders  and  carried  him  toward 
the  wood;  but  before  reaching  it,  Bossard  himself  was  shot 
down.  Then  another  man,  Laroche-Davo,  succeeded  him, 
made  fifty  steps,  and  he  too  fell  in  the  ditch  that  separates 
the  wood  from  the  plain. 

Then  the  Marquis  de  Souday  lifted  Charette  in  his  arms, 
and  while  Jean  Oullier  with  two  shots  killed  two  republi- 
can soldiers  who  were  close  at  their  heels,  he  carried  the 
general  into  the  wood,  followed  by  the  seven  men  still  liv- 
ing. Once  fairly  within  the  woods,  Charette  recovered  his 
senses. 

"Souday,"  he  said,  "listen  to  my  last  orders." 

The  young  man  stopped. 

"Put  me  down  at  the  foot  of  that  oak." 

Souday  hesitated  to  obey. 

"I  am  still  your  general,"  said  Charette,  imperiously. 
"Obey  me." 

The  young  man,  overawed,  did  as  he  was  told  and  put 
down  the  general  at  the  foot  of  the  oak. 


Portrait  of  Charette. 


charette's  aide-de-camp.  17 

"There!  now,"  said  Charette,  "listen  to  me.  The  king 
who  made  me  general-in-chief  must  be  told  how  his  general 
died.  Return  to  his  Majesty  Louis  XVIII.,  and  tell  him 
all  that  you  have  seen;  1  demand  it." 

Charette  spoke  with  such  solemnity  that  the  marquis 
did  not  dream  of  disobeying  him. 

"  Go  !  "  said  Charette,  "  you  have  not  a  minute  to  spare  ; 
here  come  the  Blues.     Fly!" 

As  he  spoke  the  republicans  had  reached  the  edge  of  the 
woods.  Souday  took  the  hand  which  Charette  held  out  to 
him. 

"Kiss  me,"  said  the  latter. 

The  young  man  kissed  him. 

"That  will  do,"  said  the  general;  "now  go." 

Souday  cast  a  look  at  Jean  Oullier. 

"Are  you  coming?  "  he  said. 

But  his  follower  shook  his  head  gloomily. 

"What  have  I  to  do  over  there,  monsieur  le  marquis?" 
he  said.     "  Whereas  here  —  " 

"Here,  what?" 

"I  '11  tell  you  that  if  we  ever  meet  again,  monsieur  le 
marquis." 

So  saying,  he  fired  two  balls  at  the  nearest  republicans. 
They  fell.  One  of  them  was  an  officer  of  rank  ;  his  men 
pressed  round  him.  Jean  Oullier  and  the  marquis  profited 
by  that  instant  to  bury  themselves  in  the  depths  of  the 
woods. 

But  at  the  end  of  some  fifty  paces  Jean  Oullier,  finding 
a  thick  bush  at  hand,  slipped  into  it  like  a  snake,  with  a 
gesture  of  farewell  to  the  Marquis  de  Souday. 

The  marquis  continued  his  way  alone. 

VOL.   I.  —  2 


18  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 


II. 

THE   GRATITUDE    OF    KINGS. 

The  Marquis  de  Souday  gained  the  banks  of  the  Loire  and 
found  a  fisherman  who  was  willing  to  take  him  to  Saint  - 
Gildas.  A  frigate  hove  in  sight,  — •  an  English  frigate. 
For  a  few  more  louis  the  fisherman  consented  to  put  the 
marquis  aboard  of  her.     Once  there,  he  was  safe. 

Two  or  three  days  later  the  frigate  hailed  a  three-masted 
merchantman,  which  was  heading  for  the  Channel.  She 
was  Dutch.  The  marquis  asked  to  be  put  aboard  of  her; 
the  English  captain  consented.  The  Dutchman  landed 
him  at  Rotterdam.  Erom  Rotterdam  he  went  to  Blanken- 
bourg,  a  little  town  in  the  duchy  of  Brunswick,  which 
Louis  XVIII.  had  chosen  for  his  residence. 

The  marquis  now  prepared  to  execute  Charette's  last 
instructions.  When  he  reached  the  château  Louis  XVIII. 
was  dining;  this  was  always  a  sacred  hour  to  him.  The 
ex-page  was  told  to  wait.  When  dinner  was  over  he  was 
introduced  into  the  king's  presence. 

He  related  the  events  he  had  seen  with  his  own  eyes, 
and,  above  all,  the  last  catastrophe,  with  such  eloquence 
that  his  Majesty,  who  was  not  impressionable,  was  enough 
impressed  to  cry  out:  — 

"Enough,  enough,  marquis!  Yes,  the  Chevalier  de 
Charette  was  a  brave  servant;  we  are  grateful  to  him." 

He  made  the  messenger  a  sign  to  retire.  The  marquis 
obeyed;  but  as  he  withdrew  he  heard  the  king  say,  in  a 
sulky  tone  :  — 

"  That  fool  of  a  Souday  coming  here  and  telling  me  such 
things  after  dinner  !     It  is  enough  to  upset  my  digestion!  " 


THE   GRATITUDE   OF   KINGS.  19 

The  marquis  was  touchy;  he  thought  that  after  exposing 
his  life  for  six  months  it  was  a  poor  reward  to  be  called  a 
fool  by  him  for  whom  he  had  exposed  it.  One  hundred 
louis  were  still  in  his  pocket,  and  he  left  Blankenbourg 
that  evening,   saying  to  himself:  — 

"If  I  had  known  that  I  should  be  received  in  that  way  I 
would  n't  have  taken  such  pains  to  come." 

He  returned  to  Holland,  and  from  Holland  he  went  to 
England.  There  began  a  new  phase  in  the  existence  of 
the  Marquis  de  Souday.  He  was  one  of  those  men  who 
are  moulded  by  circumstances,  —  men  who  are  strong  or 
weak,  brave  or  pusillanimous,  according  to  the  surround- 
ings among  which  fortune  casts  them.  For  six  months  he 
had  been  at  the  apex  of  that  terrible  Vendéan  epic;  his 
blood  had  stained  the  gorse  and  the  moors  of  upper  and 
lower  Poitou;  he  had  borne  with  stoical  fortitude  not  only 
the  ill-fortune  of  battle,  but  also  the  privations  of  that 
guerilla  warfare,  bivouacking  in  snow,  wandering  without 
food,  without  clothes,  without  shelter,  in  the  boggy  forests 
of  La  Vendée.  Not  once  had  he  felt  a  regret;  not  a  single 
complaint  had  passed  his  lips. 

And  yet,  with  all  these  antecedents,  when  isolated  in 
the  midst  of  that  great  city  of  London,  where  he  wandered 
sadly  regretting  the  excitements  of  war,  he  felt  himself 
without  courage  in  presence  of  enforced  idleness,  without 
resistance  under  ennui,  without  energy  to  overcome  the 
wretchedness  of  exile.  This  man,  who  had  bravely  borne 
the  attacks  and  pursuits  of  the  infernal  columns  of  the 
Blues,  could  not  bear  up  against  the  evil  suggestions  which 
came  of  idleness.  He  sought  pleasure  everywhere  to  fill 
the  void  in  his  existence  caused  by  the  absence  of  stirring 
vicissitudes  and  the  excitements  of  a  deadly  struggle. 

Now  such  pleasures  as  a  penniless  exile  could  command 
were  not  of  a  high  order;  and  thus  it  happened  that,  little 
by  little,  he  lost  his  former  elegance  and  the  look  and 
manner  of  gentleman  as  his  tastes  deteriorated.  He  drank 
ale  and  porter  instead  of  champagne,  and  contented  him- 


20  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

self  with  the  bedizened  women  of  the  Haymarket  and 
Regent  Street,  —  he  who  had  chosen  his  first  loves  among 
the  duchesses. 

Soon  the  looseness  of  his  principles  and  the  pressure  of 
his  needs  drove  him  into  connections  from  which  his  repu- 
tation suffered.  He  accepted  pleasures  when  he  could  not 
pay  for  them  ;  his  companions  in  debauchery  were  of  a 
lower  class  than  himself.  After  a  time  his  own  class  of 
émigrés  turned  away  from  him,  and  by  the  natural  drift  of 
things,  the  more  the  marquis  found  himself  neglected  by 
his  rightful  friends,  the  deeper  he  plunged  into  the  evil 
ways  he  had  now  entered. 

He  had  been  leading  this  existence  for  about  two  years, 
when  by  chance  he  encountered,  in  an  evil  resort  which  he 
frequented,  a  young  working-girl,  whom  one  of  those 
infamous  women  who  infest  London  had  enticed  from  her 
poor  home  and  produced  for  the  first  time.  In  spite  of  the 
changes  which  ill-luck  and  a  reckless  life  had  produced  in 
the  marquis,  the  poor  girl  perceived  the  remains  of  a  gen- 
tleman still  in  him.  She  flung  herself  at  his  feet,  and 
implored  him  to  save  her  from  an  infamous  life,  for  which 
she  was  not  meant,  having  always  been  good  and  virtuous 
till  then. 

The  young  girl  was  pretty,  and  the  marquis  offered  to 
take  her  with  him.  She  threw  herself  on  his  neck  and 
promised  him  all  her  love  and  the  utmost  devotion.  With- 
out any  thought  of  doing  a  good  action  the  marquis  defeated 
the  speculation  on  Eva's  beauty, — the  girl  was  named 
Eva.  She  kept  her  word,  poor,  faithful  creature  that  she 
was;  the  marquis  was  her  first  and  last  and  only  love. 

The  matter  was  a  fortunate  thing  for  both  of  them. 
The  marquis  was  getting  very  tired  of  cock-fights  and  the 
acrid  fumes  of  beer,  not  to  speak  of  frays  with  constables 
and  loves  at  street-corners.  The  tenderness  of  the  young 
girl  rested  him;  the  possession  of  the  pure  child,  white 
as  the  swans  which  are  the  emblem  of  Brittany,  his  own 
land,  satisfied  his  vanity.     Little  by  little,  he  changed  his 


THE   GKATITUDE   OF   KINGS.  21 

course  of  life,  and  though  he  never  returned  to  the  habits 
of  his  own  class,  he  did  adopt  a  life  which  was  that  of  a 
decent  man. 

He  went  to  live  with  Eva  on  the  upper  floor  of  a  house 
in  Piccadilly.  She  was  a  good  workwoman,  and  soon 
found  employment  with  a  milliner.  The  marquis  gave 
fencing-lessons.  From  that  time  they  lived  on  the  humble 
proceeds  of  their  employments,  finding  great  happiness  in 
a  love  which  had  now  become  powerful  enough  to  gild 
their  poverty.  ^Nevertheless,  this  love,  like  all  things 
mortal,  wore  out  in  the  end,  though  not  for  a  long  time. 
Happily  for  Eva,  the  emotions  of  the  Vendéan  war  and  the 
frantic  excitements  of  London  hells  had  used  up  her  lover's 
superabundant  sap;  he  was  really  an  old  man  before  his 
time.  The  day  on  which  the  marquis  first  perceived  that 
his  love  for  Eva  was  waning,  the  day  when  her  kisses  were 
powerless,  not  to  satisfy  him  but  to  rouse  him,  habit  had 
acquired  such  an  influence  over  him  that  even  had  he 
sought  distractions  outside  his  home  he  no  longer  had  the 
force  or  the  courage  to  break  a  connection  in  which  his 
selfishness  still  found  the  monotonous  comforts  of  daily 
life. 

The  former  viveur,  whose  ancestors  had  possessed  for 
three  centuries  the  power  of  life  and  death  in  their  prov- 
ince, the  ex-brigand,  the  aide-de-camp  to  the  brigand 
Charette,  led  for  a  dozen  years  the  dull,  precarious,  drudg- 
ing life  of  a  humble  clerk,  or  a  mechanic  more  humble 
still. 

Heaven  had  long  refrained  from  blessing  this  illegiti- 
mate marriage;  but  at  last  the  prayers  which  Eva  had 
never  ceased  to  offer  for  twelve  years  were  granted.  The 
poor  woman  became  pregnant,  and  gave  birth  to  twin 
daughters.  But  alas  !  a  few  hours  of  the  maternal  joys 
she  had  so  longed  for  were  all  that  were  granted  to  her. 
She  died  of  puerperal  fever. 

Eva's  tenderness  for  the  Marquis  de  Souday  was  as  deep 
and  warm  at  the  end  of  twelve  years'  devotion  as  it  was  in 


22  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

the  beginning  of  their  intercourse;  yet  her  love,  great  as 
it  was,  did  not  prevent  her  from  recognizing  that  frivolity 
and  selfishness  were  at  the  bottom  of  her  lover's  character. 
Therefore  she  suffered  in  dying  not  only  the  anguish  of 
bidding  an  eternal  farewell  to  the  man  she  had  loved  so 
deeply,  but  the  terror  of  leaving  the  future  of  her  children 
in  his  hands. 

This  loss  produced  impressions  upon  the  marquis  which 
we  shall  endeavor  to  reproduce  minutely,  because  they 
seem  to  us  to  give  a  distinct  idea  of  the  nature  of  the  man 
who  is  destined  to  play  an  important  part  in  the  narrative 
we  are  now  undertaking. 

He  began  by  mourning  his  companion  seriously  and  sin- 
cerely. He  could  not  help  doing  homage  to  her  good 
qualities  and  recognizing  the  happiness  which  he  owed  to 
her  affection.  Then,  after  his  first  grief  had  passed  away, 
he  felt  something  of  the  joy  of  a  schoolboy  when  he  gets 
out  of  bounds.  Sooner  or  later  his  name,  rank,  and  birth 
must  have  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  break  the  tie. 
The  marquis  felt  grateful  to  Providence  for  relieving  him 
of  a  duty  which  would  certainly  have  distressed  him. 

This  satisfaction,  however,  was  short-lived.  Eva's  ten- 
derness, the  continuity,  if  we  may  say  so,  of  the  care  and 
attention  she  had  given  him,  had  spoilt  the  marquis;  and 
those  cares  and  attentions,  now  that  he  had  suddenly  lost 
them,  seemed  to  him  more  essential  to  his  happiness  than 
ever.  The  humble  chambers  in  which  they  had  lived 
became,  now  that  the  Englishwoman's  fresh,  pure  voice  no 
longer  enlivened  them,  what  they  were  in  reality,  —  miser- 
able lodging-rooms;  and,  in  like  manner,  when  his  eyes 
sought  involuntarily  the  silky  hair  of  his  companion  lying 
in  golden  waves  upon  the  pillow,  his  bed  was  nothing 
more  than  a  wretched  pallet.  Where  could  he  now  look 
for  the  soft  petting,  the  tender  attention  to  all  his  wants, 
with  which,  for  twelve  good  years,  Eva  had  surrounded 
him.  When  he  reached  this  stage  of  his  desolation  the 
marquis  admitted  to  himself  that  he  could  never  replace 


THE   GRATITUDE    OF    KINGS.  23 

them.  Consequently,  he  began  to  mourn  poor  Eva  more 
than  ever,  and  when  the  time  came  for  him  to  part  with 
his  little  girls,  whom  he  sent  into  Yorkshire  to  be  nursed, 
he  put  such  a  rush  of  tenderness  into  his  grief  that  the 
good  country-woman,  their  foster-mother,  was  sincerely 
affected. 

After  thus  separating  from  all  that  united  him  with  the 
past,  the  Marquis  de  Souday  succumbed  under  the  burden 
of  his  solitude;  he  became  morose  and  taciturn.  As  his 
religious  faith  was  none  too  solid,  he  would  probably  have 
ended,  under  the  deep  disgust  of  life  which  now  took  pos- 
session of  him,  by  jumping  into  the  Thames,  if  the  catas- 
trophe of  1814  had  not  happened  just  in  time  to  distract 
him  from  his  melancholy  thoughts.  Re-entering  France, 
which  he  had  never  hoped  to  see  again,  the  Marquis  de 
Souday  very  naturally  applied  to  Louis  XVIII. ,  of  whom 
he  had  asked  nothing  during  his  exile  in  return  for  the 
blood  he  had  shed  for  him.  But  princes  often  seek  pre- 
texts for  ingratitude,  and  Louis  XVIII.  was  furnished 
with  three  against  his  former  page:  first,  the  tempestu- 
ous manner  in  which  he  had  announced  to  his  Majesty 
Charette's  death, — an  announcement  which  had  in  fact 
troubled  the  royal  digestion;  secondly,  his  disrespectful 
departure  from  Blankenbourg,  accompanied  by  language 
even  more  disrespectful  than  the  departure  itself;  and 
thirdly  (this  was  the  gravest  pretext),  the  irregularity  of 
his  life  and  conduct  during  the  emigration. 

Much  praise  was  bestowed  upon  the  bravery  and  devo- 
tion of  the  former  page;  but  he  was,  ver}r  gently,  made  to 
understand  that  with  such  scandals  attaching  to  his  name 
he  could  not  expect  to  fulfil  any  public  functions.  The 
king  was  no  longer  an  autocrat,  they  told  him;  he  was 
now  compelled  to  consider  public  opinion;  after  the  late 
period  of  public  immorality  it  was  necessary  to  introduce 
a  new  and  more  rigid  era  of  morals.  How  fine  a  thing  it 
would  be  if  the  marquis  were  willing  to  sacrifice  his  own 
personal  ambitions  to  the  necessities  of  the  State. 


24  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

In  short,  they  persuaded  him  to  be  satisfied  with  the 
cross  of  Saint-Louis,  the  rank  and  pension  of  a  major  of 
cavalry,  and  to  take  himself  off  to  eat  the  king's  bread  on 
his  estate  at  Souday,  —  the  sole  fragment  recovered  by  the 
poor  emigre  from  the  wreck  of  the  enormous  fortune  of  his 
ancestors. 

What  was  really  fine  about  all  this  was  that  these  excuses 
and  hypocrisies  did  not  hinder  the  Marquis  de  Souday 
from  doing  his  duty,  — that  is,  from  leaving  his  poor  cas- 
tle to  defend  the  white  flag  when  Napoleon  made  his 
marvellous  return  from  Elba.  Napoleon  fell  again,  and 
for  the  second  time  the  marquis  re-entered  Paris  with 
the  legitimate  princes.  But  this  time,  wiser  than  he 
was  in  1814,  he  merely  asked  of  the  restored  monarchy 
for  the  place  of  Master  of  Wolves  to  the  arrondissement 
of  Machecoul,  —  an  office  in  the  royal  gift  which,  being 
without  salary  or  emolument,  was  willingly  accorded  to 
him. 

Deprived  during  his  youth  of  a  pleasure  which  in  his 
family  was  an  hereditary  passion,  the  marquis  now  devoted 
himself  ardently  to  hunting.  Always  unhappy  in  a  soli- 
tary life,  for  which  he  was  totally  unfitted,  yet  growing 
more  and  more  misanthropic  as  the  result  of  his  political 
disappointments,  he  found  in  this  active  exercise  a  momen- 
tary forgetfulness  of  his  bitter  memories.  Thus  the  posi- 
tion of  Master  of  Wolves,  which  gave  him  the  right  to 
roam  the  State  forests  at  will,  afforded  him  far  more  satis- 
faction than  his  ribbon  of  Saint-Louis  or  his  commission 
as  major  of  cavalry. 

So  the  Marquis  de  Souday  had  been  living  for  two  years 
in  the  mouldy  little  castle  we  lately  described,  beating  the 
woods  day  and  night  with  his  six  dogs  (the  only  establish- 
ment his  slender  means  permitted),  seeing  his  neighbors 
just  enough  to  prevent  them  from  considering  him  an 
absolute  bear,  and  thinking  as  little  as  he  could  of  his  past 
wealth  and  his  past  fame,  when  one  morning,  as  he  was 
starting  to  explore  the  north  end  of  the  forest  of  Machecoul, 


THE   GRATITUDE   OF   KINGS.  25 

he  met  on  the  road  a  peasant  woman  carrying  a  child  three 
or  four  years  old  on  each  arm. 

The  marquis  instantly  recognized  the  woman  and  blushed 
as  he  did  so.  It  was  the  nurse  from  Yorkshire,  to  whom 
he  had  regularly  for  the  last  thirty-six  months  neglected 
to  pay  the  board  of  her  two  nurslings.  The  worthy 
woman  had  gone  to  London,  and  there  made  inquiries  at 
the  French  legation.  She  had  now  reached  Machecoul 
with  the  assistance  of  the  French  minister,  who  of  course 
did  not  doubt  that  the  Marquis  de  Souday  would  be  most 
happy  to  recover  his  two  children. 

The  singular  part  of  it  is  that  the  ambassador  was  not 
entirely  mistaken.  The  little  girls  reminded  the  marquis 
so  vividly  of  his  poor  Eva  that  he  was  seized  with  genuine 
emotion;  he  kissed  them  with  a  tenderness  that  was  not 
assumed,  gave  his  gun  to  the  Englishwoman,  took  his 
children  in  his  arms,  and  returned  to  the  castle  with  this 
unlooked-for  game,  to  the  utter  stupefaction  of  the  cook, 
who  constituted  his  whole  household,  and  who  now  over- 
whelmed him  with  questions  as  to  the  singular  accession 
thus  made  to  the  family. 

These  questions  alarmed  the  marquis.  He  was  only 
thirty-nine  years  of  age,  and  vague  ideas  of  marriage  still 
floated  in  his  head  ;  he  regarded  it  as  a  duty  not  to  let  a 
name  and  house  so  illustrious  as  that  of  Souday  come  to  an 
end  in  his  person.  Moreover,  he  would  not  have  been 
sorry  to  turn  over  to  a  wife  the  management  of  his  house- 
hold affairs,  which  was  odious  to  him.  But  the  realization 
of  that  idea  would,  of  course,  be  impossible  if  he  kept  the 
little  girls  in  his  house. 

He  saw  this  plainly,  paid  the  Englishwoman  hand- 
somely, and  the  next  day  despatched  her  back  to  her 
own  country. 

During  the  night  he  had  come  to  a  resolution  which,  he 
thought,  would  solve  all  difficulties.  What  was  that 
resolution?     We  shall  now  see. 


26  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 


III. 


THE    TWINS. 

The  Marquis  de  Souday  went  to  bed  repeating  to  himself 
the  old  proverb,  "Xight  brings  counsel."  With  that  hope 
he  fell  asleep.     When  asleep,  he  dreamed. 

He  dreamed  of  his  old  wars  in  La  Vendee  with  Charette, 
—  of  the  days  when  he  was  aide-de-camp  ;  and,  more 
especially,  he  dreamed  of  Jean  Oullier,  his  attendant,  of 
whom  he  had  never  thought  since  the  day  when  they  left 
Charette  dying,  and  parted  in  the  wood  of  Chabotière. 

As  well  as  he  could  remember,  Jean  Oullier  before 
joining  Charette's  army  had  lived  in  the  village  of  La 
Chevrolière,  near  the  lake  of  Grand-Lieu.  The  next 
morning  the  Marquis  de  Souday  sent  a  man  of  Machecoul. 
who  did  his  errands,  on  horseback  with  a  letter,  ordering 
him  to  go  to  La  Chevrolière  and  ascertain  if  a  man  named 
Jean  Oullier  was  still  living  and  whether  he  was  in  the 
place.  If  he  was,  the  messenger  was  to  give  him  the 
letter  and,  if  possible,  bring  him  back  with  him.  If  he 
lived  at  a  short  distance  the  messenger  was  to  go  there. 
If  the  distance  was  too  great  he  was  to  obtain  every  infor- 
mation as  to  the  locality  of  his  abode.  If  lie  was  dead  the 
messenger  was  to  return  at  once  and  say  so. 

Jean  Oullier  was  not  dead;  Jean  Oullier  was  not  in  dis- 
tant parts;  Jean  Oullier  was  in  the  neighborhood  of  La 
Chevrolière;  in  fact,  Jean  Oullier  was  in  La  Chevrolière 
itself. 

Here  is  what  had  happened  to  him  after  parting  with 
the  marquis  on  the  day  of  Charette's  last  defeat.  He 
stayed  hidden  in  the  bush,  from  which  he  could  see  all 


THE    TWINS.  27 

and  not  be  seen  himself.  He  saw  General  Travot  take 
Charette  prisoner  and  treat  hiin  with  all  the  consideration 
a  man  like  General  Travot  would  show  to  a  man  like 
Charette.  But,  apparently,  that  was  not  all  that  Jean 
Chillier  expected  to  see,  for  after  seeing  the  republicans 
lay  Charette  on  a  litter  and  carry  him  away,  Jean  Oullier 
still  remained  hidden  in  his  bush. 

It  is  true  that  an  officer  with  a  picket  of  twelve  men 
remained  in  the  wood.     What  were  they  there  for? 

About  an  hour  later  a  Vend eau  peasant  passed  within 
ten  paces  of  Jean  Oullier,  having  answered  the  challenge 
of  the  sentinel  with  the  word  "Friend," — an  odd  answer 
in  the  mouth  of  a  royalist  peasant  to  a  republican  soldier. 
The  peasant  next  exchanged  the  countersign  with  the  sen- 
try and  passed  on.  Then  he  approached  the  officer,  who, 
with  an  expression  of  disgust  which  it  is  quite  impossible 
to  represent,  gave  him  a  bag  that  was  evidently  full  of 
gold.  After  which  the  peasant  disappeared,  and  the  officer 
with  his  picket  guard  also  departed,  showing  that  in  all 
probability-  they  had  only  been  stationed  there  to  await  the 
coming  of  the  peasant. 

In  all  probabilit}7,  too,  Jean  Oullier  had  seen  what  he 
wanted  to  see,  for  he  came  out  of  his  bush  as  he  went  into 
it,  — that  is  to  say,  crawling;  and  getting  on  his  feet,  he 
tore  the  white  cockade  from  his  hat,  and,  with  the  careless 
indifference  of  a  man  who  for  the  last  three  years  had 
staked  his  life  every  day  on  a  turn  of  the  dice,  he  buried 
himself  still  deeper  in  the  forest. 

The  same  night  he  reached  La  Chevrolière.  He  went 
straight  to  his  own  home.  On  the  spot  where  his  house 
had  stood  was  a  blackened  ruin,  blackened  by  fire.  He 
sat  down  upon  a  stone  and  wept. 

In  that  house  he  had  left  a  wife  and  two  children. 

Soon  he  heard  a  step  and  raised  his  head.  A  peasant 
passed.  Jean  Oullier  recognized  him  in  the  darkness  and 
called  :  — 

"Tinguy!" 


28  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

The  man  approached. 

"  Who  is  it  calls  me  ?  "  he  said. 

"I  am  Jean  Oullier,"  replied  the  Chouan. 

"God  help  you,"  replied  Tinguy,  attempting  to  pass  on; 
but  Jean  Oullier  stopped  him. 

"  You  must  answer  me,  "  he  said. 

"  Are  you  a  man  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"Then  question  me  and  I  will  answer." 

"My  father?" 

"Dead." 

"My  wife?" 

"Dead." 

"My  two  children?" 

"Dead." 

"Thank  you." 

Jean  Oullier  sat  down  again,  but  he  no  longer  wept. 
After  a  few  moments  he  fell  on  his  knees  and  prayed.  It 
was  time  he  did,  for  he  was  about  to  blaspheme.  He 
prayed  for  those  who  were  dead. 

Then,  restored  by  that  deep  faith  that  gave  him  hope  to 
meet  them  in  a  better  world,  he  bivouacked  on  those  sad 
ruins. 

The  next  day,  at  dawn,  he  began  to  rebuild  his  house, 
as  calm  and  resolute  as  though  his  father  were  still  at  the 
plough,  his  wife  before  the  fire,  his  children  at  the  door. 
Alone,  and  asking  no  help  from  any  one,  he  rebuilt  his 
cottage. 

There  he  lived,  doing  the  humble  work  of  a  day  laborer. 
If  any  one  had  counselled  Jean  Oullier  to  ask  a  reward 
from  the  Bourbons  for  doing  what  he,  rightly  or  wrongly, 
considered  his  duty,  that  adviser  ran  some  risk  of  insulting 
the  grand  simplicity  of  the  poor  peasant. 

It  will  be  readily  understood  that  with  such  a  nature 
Jean  Oullier,  on  receiving  the  letter  in  which  the  marquis 
called  him  his  old  comrade  and  begged  him  to  come  to 
him,  he  did  not  delay  his  going.     On   the   contrary,  he 


THE    TWINS.  29 

locked  the  door  of  his  house,  put  the  key  in  his  pocket, 
and  then,  as  he  lived  alone  and  had  no  one  to  notify,  he 
started  instantly.  The  messenger  offered  him  his  horse, 
or,  at  any  rate,  to  take  him  up  behind  him  ;  but  Jean  Oullier 
shook  his  head. 

"Thank  God,"  he  said,  "my  legs  are  good." 

Then  resting  his  hand  on  the  horse's  neck,  he  set  the 
pace  for  the  animal  to  take,  —  a  gentle  trot  of  six  miles  an 
hour.  That  evening  Jean  Oullier  was  at  the  castle.  The 
marquis  received  him  with  visible  delight.  He  had  wor- 
ried all  day  over  the  idea  that  Jean  Oullier  might  be 
absent,  or  dead.  It  is  not  necessary  to  say  that  the  idea 
of  that  death  worried  him  not  for  Jean  Oullier's  sake  but 
for  his  own.  We  have  already  informed  our  readers  that 
the  Marquis  de  Souday  was  slightly  selfish. 

The  first  thing  the  marquis  did  was  to  take  Jean  Oullier 
apart  and  confide  to  him  the  arrival  of  his  children  and  his 
consequent  embarrassment. 

Jean  Oullier,  who  had  had  his  own  two  children  massa- 
cred, could  not  understand  that  a  father  should  voluntarily 
wish  to  part  with  his  children.  He  nevertheless  accepted 
the  proposal  made  to  him  by  the  marquis  to  bring  up  the 
little  girls  till  such  a  time  as  they  were  of  age  to  go  to 
school.  He  said  he  would  find  some  good  woman  at  La 
Chevrolière  who  would  be  a  mother  to  them,  —  if,  indeed, 
any  one  could  take  the  place  of  a  mother  to  orphaned 
children. 

Had  the  twins  been  sickly,  ugly,  or  disagreeable,  Jean 
Oullier  would  have  taken  them  all  the  same;  but  they 
were,  on  the  contrary,  so  prepossessing,  so  pretty,  so 
graceful,  and  their  smiles  so  engaging,  that  the  good  man 
instantly  loved  them  as  such  men  do  love.  He  declared 
that  their  fair  and  rosy  faces  and  curling  hair  were  so  like 
those  of  the  cherubs  that  surrounded  the  Madonna  over  the 
high  altar  at  Grand-Lieu  before  it  was  destroyed,  that  he 
felt  like  kneeling  to  them  when  he  saw  them. 

It   was   therefore    decided    that   on    the    morrow   Jean 


30  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Oullier  should  take  the  children  back  with  him  to  La 
Chevrolière. 

Now  it  so  happened  that,  during  the  time  which  had 
elapsed  between  the  departure  of  the  nurse  and  the  arrival 
of  Jean  Oullier,  the  weather  had  been  rainy.  The  mar- 
quis, confined  to  the  castle,  felt  terribly  bored.  Feeling 
bored,  he  sent  for  his  daughters  and  began  to  play  with 
them.  Putting  one  astride  his  neck,  and  perching  the 
other  on  his  back,  he  was  soon  galloping  on  all  fours  round 
the  room,  like  Henri  of  Navarre.  Only,  he  improved  on 
the  amusement  which  his  Majesty  afforded  his  progeny  by 
imitating  with  his  mouth  not  only  the  horn  of  the  hunter, 
but  the  barking  and  yelping  of  the  whole  pack  of  hounds. 
This  domestic  sport  diverted  the  Marquis  de  Souday  im- 
mensely, and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  little  girls  had 
never  laughed  so  much  in  their  lives. 

Besides,  the  little  things  had  been  won  by  the  tender- 
ness and  the  petting  their  father  had  lavished  upon  them 
during  these  few  hours,  to  appease,  no  doubt,  the  reproaches 
of  his  conscience  at  sending  them  away  from  him  after  so 
long  a  separation.  The  children,  on  their  side,  showed 
him  a  frantic  attachment  and  a  lively  gratitude,  which 
were  not  a  little  dangerous  to  the  fulfilment  of  his  plan. 

In  fact,  when  the  carriole  came,  at  eight  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  to  the  steps  of  the  portico,  and  the  twins  per- 
ceived that  they  were  about  to  be  taken  away,  they  set  up 
cries  of  anguish.  Bertha  flung  herself  on  her  father, 
clasped  his  knees,  clung  to  the  garters  of  the  gentleman 
who  gave  her  sugar-plums  and  made  himself  such  a  capital 
horse,  and  twisted  her  little  hands  into  them  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  poor  marquis  feared  to  bruise  her  wrists 
by  trying  to  unclasp  them. 

As  for  Mary,  she  sat  down  on  the  steps  and  cried;  but 
she  cried  with  such  an  expression  of  real  sorrow  that  Jean 
Oullier  felt  more  touched  by  her  silent  grief  than  by  the 
noisy  despair  of  her  sister.  The  marquis  employer1  all  his 
eloquence  to  persuade  the  little  girls  that  by  getting  into 


THE    TWINS.  31 

the  carriage  .  they  would  have  more  pleasure  and  more 
dainties  than  by  staying  with  him;  but  the  more  he  talked, 
the  more  Mary  cried  and  the  more  Bertha  quivered  and 
passionately  clung  to  him. 

The  marquis  began  to  get  impatient.  Seeing  that  per- 
suasion could  do  nothing,  he  was  about  to  employ  force 
when,  happening  to  turn  his  eyes,  he  caught  sight  of  the 
look  on  Jean  Oullier's  face.  Two  big  tears  were  rolling 
down  the  bronzed  cheeks  of  the  peasant  into  the  thick  red 
whiskers  which  framed  his  face.  Those  tears  acted  both 
as  a  prayer  to  the  marquis  and  as  a  reproach  to  the  father. 
Monsieur  de  Souday  made  a  sign  to  Jean  Oullier  to  unhar- 
ness the  horse;  and  while  Bertha,  understanding  the  sign, 
danced  with  joy  on  the  portico,  he  whispered  in  the 
farmer's  ear  :  — 

"You  can  start  to-morrow." 

As  the  day  was  very  fine,  the  marquis  desired  to  utilize 
the  presence  of  Jean  Oullier  by  taking  him  on  a  hunt; 
with  which  intent  he  carried  him  off  to  his  own  bedroom 
to  help  him  on  with  his  sporting-clothes.  The  peasant 
was  much  struck  by  the  frightful  disorder  of  the  little 
room;  and  the  marquis  continued  his  confidences  with 
bitter  complaints  of  his  female  servitor,  who,  he  said, 
might  be  good  enough  among  her  pots  and  pans,  but  was 
odiously  careless  as  to  all  other  household  comforts,  par- 
ticularly those  that  concerned  his  clothes.  On  this  occa- 
sion it  was  ten  minutes  before  he  could  find  a  waistcoat 
that  was  not  widowed  of  its  buttons,  or  a  pair  of  breeches 
not  afflicted  with  a  rent  that  made  them  more  or  less 
indecent.     However,  he  was  dressed  at  last. 

Wolf-master  though  he  was,  the  marqiiis,  as  we  have 
said,  was  too  poor  to  allow  himself  the  luxury  of  a  hunts- 
man, and  he  led  his  little  pack  himself.  Therefore,  hav- 
ing the  double  duty  of  keeping  the  hounds  from  getting  at 
fault,  and  firing  at  the  game,  it  was  seldom  that  the  poor 
marquis,  passionate  sportsman  that  he  was,  did  not  come 
home  at  night  tired  out. 


32  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

With  Jean  Oullier  it  was  quite  another  thing.  The 
vigorous  peasant,  in  the  flower  of  his  age,  sprang  through 
the  forest  with  the  agility  of  a  squirrel  ;  he  bounded  over 
bushes  when  it  took  too  long  to  go  round  them,  and,  thanks 
to  his  muscles  of  steel,  he  never  was  behind  the  dogs  by  a 
length.  On  two  or  three  occasions  he  supported  them  with 
such  vigor  that  the  boar  they  were  pursuing,  recognizing 
the  fact  that  flight  would  not  shake  off  his  enemies,  ended 
by  turning  and  standing  at  bay  in  a  thicket,  where  the 
marquis  had  the  happiness  of  killing  him  at  one  blow, — ■ 
a  thing  that  had  never  yet  happened  to  him. 

The  marquis  went  home  light-hearted  and  joyful,  thank' 
ing  Jean  Oullier  for  the  delightful  day  he  owed  to  him. 
During  dinner  he  was  in  fine  good-humor,  and  invented 
new  games  to  keep  the  little  girls  as  gay  as  himself. 

At  night,  when  he  went  to  his  room,  the  marquis  found 
Jean  Oullier  sitting  cross-legged  in  a  corner,  like  a  Turk 
or  a  tailor.  Before  him  was  a  mound  of  garments,  and  in 
his  hand  he  held  a  pair  of  old  velvet  breeches  which  he 
was  darning  vigorously. 

"  What  the  devil  are  you  doing  there  ?  "  demanded  the 
marquis. 

"The  winter  is  cold  in  this  level  country,  especially 
when  the  wind  is  from  the  sea;  and  after  I  get  home  my 
legs  will  be  cold  at  the  very  thought  of  a  norther  blowing 
on  yours  through  these  rents,"  replied  Jean  Oullier,  show- 
ing his  master  a  tear  which  went  from  knee  to  belt  in  the 
breeches  he  was  mending. 

"  Ha  !  so  you  're  a  tailor,  too,  are  you  ?  "  cried  the 
marquis. 

"  Alas  !  "  said  Jean  Oullier,  "  one  has  to  be  a  little  of 
everything  when  one  lives  alone  as  I  have  done  these 
twenty  years.     Besides,  an  old  soldier  is  never  at  a  loss." 

"I  like  that!"  said  the  marquis;  "pray,  am  not  I  a 
soldier,  too?" 

"  No  ;  you  were  an  officer,  and  that 's  not  the  same 
thing." 


THE    TWINS.  33 

The  Marquis  de  Souday  looked  at  Jean  Oullier  admir- 
ingly. Then  he  went  to  bed  and  to  sleep,  and  snored 
away,  without  in  the  least  interrupting  the  work  of  his  old 
Chouan.  In  the  middle  of  the  night  he  woke  up.  Jean 
Oullier  was  still  at  work.  The  mound  of  garments  had 
not  perceptibly  diminished. 

"But  you  can  never  finish  them,  even  if  you  work  till 
daylight,  my  poor  Jean,"  said  the  marquis. 

"I  'm  afraid  not." 

"Then  go  to  bed  now,  old  comrade;  you  needn't  start 
till  you  have  mended  up  all  my  old  rags,  and  we  can  have 
another  hunt  to-morrow." 


VOL.   I. — S 


34  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 


IV. 


HOW  JEAN  OULLIER,  COMING  TO  SEE  THE  MARQUIS  FOR  AN 
HOUR,  WOULD  BE  THERE  STILL  IF  THEY  HAD  NOT  BOTH 
BEEN    IN    THEIR    GRAVE    THESE    TEN    YEARS. 

The  next  morning,  before  starting  for  the  hunt,  it  occurred 
to  the  marquis  to  kiss  his  children.  He  therefore  went  up 
to  their  room,  and  was  not  a  little  astonished  to  find  that 
the  indefatigable  Jean  Oullier  had  preceded  him,  and  was 
wasbing  and  brushing  the  little  girls  with  the  conscientious 
determination  of  a  good  governess.  The  poor  fellow,  to 
whom  the  occupation  recalled  his  own  lost  young  ones, 
seemed  to  be  taking  deep  satisfaction  in  the  work.  The 
marquis  changed  his  admiration  into  respect. 

For  eight  days  the  hunts  continued  without  interruption, 
each  finer  and  more  fruitful  than  the  last.  During  those 
eight  days  Jean  Oullier,  huntsman  by  day,  steward  by 
night,  not  only  revived  and  restored  his  master's  wardrobe, 
but  he  actually  found  time  to  put  the  house  in  order  from 
top  to  bottom. 

The  marquis,  far  from  urging  his  departure,  now  thought 
with  horror  of  parting  from  so  valuable  a  servitor.  From 
morning  till  night,  and  sometimes  from  night  till  morning, 
he  turned  over  in  bis  mind  which  of  the  Chouan's  qualities 
was  most  serviceable  to  him.  Jean  Oullier  had  the  scent 
of  a  hound  to  follow  game,  and  the  eye  of  an  Indian  to  dis- 
cover its  trail  by  the  bend  of  the  reeds  or  the  dew  on  the 
grass.  He  could  even  tell,  on  the  dry  and  stony  roads 
about  Machecoul,  Bourgneuf,  and  Aigrefeuille,  the  age  and 
sex  of  a  boar,  when  the  trail  was  imperceptible  to  other 
eyes.     No  huntsman  on  horseback  had  ever  followed   up 


JEAN  OULLIER.  35 

the  hounds  like  Jean  Oullier  on  his  long  and  vigorous  legs. 
Moreover,  on  the  days  when  rest  was  actually  necessary 
for  the  little  pack  of  hounds,  he  was  unequalled  for  dis- 
covering the  places  where  snipe  abounded,  and  taking  his 
master  to  the  spot. 

"  Damn  marriage  !  "  cried  the  marquis  to  himself,  occa- 
sionally, when  he  seemed  to  be  thinking  of  quite  other 
things.  "Why  do  I  want  to  row  in  that  boat  when  I  have 
seen  so  many  good  fellows  come  to  grief  in  it?  Heavens 
and  earth!  I'm  not  so  young  a  man  —  almost  forty;  I 
have  n't  any  illusions;  I  don't  expect  to  captivate  a  woman 
by  my  personal  attractions.  I  can't  expect  to  do  more 
than  tempt  some  old  dowager  with  my  three  thousand 
francs  a  year,  —  half  of  which  dies  with  me.  I  should 
probably  get  a  scolding,  fussy,  nagging  wife,  who  might 
interfere  with  my  hunting,  which  that  good  Jean  manages 
so  well;  and  I  am  sure  she  will  never  keep  the  house  in 
such  order  as  he  does.  Still,"  he  added,  straightening 
himself  up,  and  swaying  the  upper  part  of  his  body,  "is 
this  a  time  to  let  the  old  races,  the  supporters  of  monarchy, 
die  out?  Would  n't  it  be  very  pleasant  to  see  my  son 
restore  the  glory  of  my  house?  Besides,  what  would  be 
thought  of  me, —  who  am  known  to  have  had  no  wife,  no 
legitimate  wife,  —  what  will  my  neighbors  say  if  I  take 
the  two  little  girls  to  live  with  me?  " 

When  these  reflections  came,  which  they  ordinarily  did 
on  rainy  days,  when  he  could  not  be  off  on  his  favorite 
pastime,  they  cast  the  Marquis  de  Souday  into  painful  per- 
plexity, from  which  he  wriggled,  as  do  all  undecided  tem- 
peraments and  weak  natures,  —  men,  in  short,  who  never 
know  how  to  adopt  a  course,  —  by  making  a  provisional 
arrangement. 

At  the  time  when  our  story  opens,  in  1831,  Mary  and 
Bertha  were  seventeen,  and  the  provisional  arrangement 
still  lasted;  although,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  Marquis 
de  Souday  had  not  yet  positively  decided  to  keep  his 
daughters  with  him. 


36  THE  LAST   VENDÉE. 

Jean  Oullier,  who  had  hung  the  key  of  his  house  at 
La  Chevrolière  to  a  nail,  had  never,  in  fourteen  years, 
had  the  least  idea  of  taking  it  down.  He  had  waited 
patiently  till  his  master  gave  him  the  order  to  go  home. 
But  as,  ever  since  his  arrival,  the  château  had  been  neat 
and  clean;  as  the  marquis  had  never  once  missed  a  but- 
ton; as  the  hunting-boots  were  always  properly  greased; 
as  the  guns  were  kept  with  all  the  care  of  the  best 
armory  at  Nantes;  as  Jean  Oullier,  by  means  of  cer- 
tain coercive  proceedings,  of  which  he  learned  the  secret 
from  a  former  comrade  of  the  "  brigand  army,  "  had,  little 
by  little,  brought  the  cook  not  to  vent  her  ill-humor  on 
her  master;  as  the  hounds  were  always  in  good  condition, 
shiny  of  coat,  neither  fat  nor  thin,  and  able  to  bear  a  long 
chase  of  eight  or  ten  hours,  ending  mostly  in  a  kill;  as 
the  chatter  and  the  pretty  ways  of  his  children  and  their 
expansive  affection  varied  the  monotony  of  his  existence; 
as  his  talks  and  gossip  with  Jean  Oullier  on  the  stirring 
incidents  of  the  old  war,  now  passed  into  a  tradition  (it 
was  thirty-six  years  distant),  enlivened  his  dull  hours  and 
the  long  evenings  and  the  rainy  days,  —  the  marquis,  find- 
ing once  more  the  good  care,  the  quiet  ease,  the  tranquil 
happiness  he  had  formerly  enjoyed  with  Eva,  with  the 
additional  and  intoxicating  joys  of  hunting,  —  the  mar- 
quis, we  say,  put  off  from  day  to  day,  from  month  to 
month,  from  year  to  year,  deciding  on  the  separation. 

As  for  Jean  Oullier,  he  had  his  own  reasons  for  not  pro- 
voking a  decision.  He  was  not  only  a  brave  man,  but  he 
was  a  good  one.  As  we  have  said,  he  at  once  took  a  lik- 
ing to  Bertha  and  Mary;  this  liking,  in  that  poor  heart 
deprived  of  its  own  children,  soon  became  tender  affection, 
and  the  tenderness  fanaticism.  He  did  not  at  first  per- 
ceive very  clearly  the  distinction  the  marquis  seemed  to 
make  between  their  position  and  that  of  other  children 
whom  he  might  have  by  a  legitimate  marriage  to  perpetu- 
ate his  name.  In  Poitou,  when  a  man  gets  a  worthy  girl 
into  trouble  he  knows  of  no  other  reparation  than  to  marry 


JEAN   OULLIER.  37 

her.  Jean  Oullier  thought  it  natural,  inasmuch  as  his 
master  could  not  legitimatize  the  connection  with  the 
mother,  that  he  should  at  least  not  conceal  the  paternity 
which  Eva  in  dying  had  bequeathed  to  him.  Therefore, 
after  two  months'  sojourn  at  the  castle,  having  made  these 
reflections,  weighed  them  in  his  mind,  and  ratified  them  in 
his  heart,  the  Chouan  would  have  received  an  order  to  take 
the  children  away  with  very  ill  grace;  and  his  respect  for 
Monsieur  de  Souday  would  not  have  prevented  him  from 
expressing  himself  bluffly  on  the  subject. 

Fortunately,  the  marquis  did  not  betray  to  his  dependant 
the  tergiversations  of  his  mind  ;  so  that  Jean  Oullier  did 
really  regard  the  provisional  arrangement  as  definitive, 
and  he  believed  that  the  marquis  considered  the  presence 
of  his  daughters  at  the  castle  as  their  right  and  also  as  his 
own  bounden  duty. 

At  the  moment  when  we  issue  from  these  preliminaries, 
Bertha  and  Mary  were,  as  we  have  said,  between  seventeen 
and  eighteen  years  of  age.  The  purity  of  race  in  their 
paternal  ancestors  had  done  marvels  when  strengthened 
with  the  vigorous  Saxon  blood  of  the  plebeian  mother. 
Eva's  children  were  now  two  splendid  young  women,  with 
refined  and  delicate  features,  slender  and  elegant  shapes, 
and  with  great  distinction  and  nobility  in  their  air  and 
manner.  They  were  as  much  alike  as  twins  are  apt  to  be; 
only  Bertha  was  dark,  like  her  father,  and  Mary  was  fair, 
like  her  mother. 

Unfortunately,  the  education  of  these  beautiful  young 
creatures,  while  developing  to  the  utmost  their  physical 
advantages,  did  not  sufficiently  concern  itself  with  the 
needs  of  their  sex.  It  was  impossible  that  it  should  be 
otherwise,  living  from  day  to  day  beside  their  father,  with 
his  natural  carelessness  and  his  determination  to  enjoy 
the  present  and  let  the  future  take  care  of  itself. 

Jean  Oullier  was  the  only  tutor  of  Eva's  children,  as  he 
was  formerly  their  only  nurse.  The  worthy  Chouan  taught 
them    all    he    knew   himself,  —  namely,    to    read,    write, 


38  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

cipher,  and  pray  with  tender  and  devont  fervor  to  God  and 
the  Virgin  ;  also  to  roam  the  woods,  scale  the  rocks,  thread 
the  tangle  of  holly,  reeds,  and  briers  without  fatigue,  with- 
out fear  or  weakness  of  any  kind;  to  hit  a  bird  on  the 
wing,  a  squirrel  on  the  leap,  and  to  ride  bareback  those 
intractable  horses  of  Mellerault,  almost  as  wild  on  their 
plains  and  moors  as  the  horses  of  the  gauchos  on  the 
pampas. 

The  Marquis  de  Souday  had  seen  all  this  without 
attempting  to  give  any  other  direction  to  the  education  of 
his  daughters,  and  without  having  even  the  idea  of  coun- 
teracting the  taste  they  were  forming  for  these  manly  exer- 
cises. The  worthy  man  was  only  too  delighted  to  have 
such  valiant  comrades  in  his  favorite  amusement,  uniting, 
as  they  did,  with  their  respectful  tenderness  toward  him 
a  gayety,  dash,  and  ardor  for  the  chase,  which  doubled 
his  own  pleasure  from  the  time  they  were  old  enough  to 
share  it. 

And  yet,  in  strict  justice,  we  must  say  that  the  marquis 
added  one  ingredient  of  his  own  to  Jean  Oullier 's  instruc- 
tions. When  Bertha  and  Mary  were  fourteen  years  old, 
which  was  the  period  when  they  first  followed  their  father 
into  the  forest,  their  childish  games,  which  had  hitherto 
made  the  old  castle  so  lively  in  the  evenings,  began  to  lose 
attraction.  So,  to  fill  the  void  he  was  beginning  to  feel, 
the  Marquis  de  Souday  taught  Bertha  and  Mary  how  to 
play  whist. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  two  children  had  themselves 
completed  mentally,  as  far  as  they  could,  the  education 
Jean  Oullier  had  so  vigorously  developed  physically. 
Playing  hide-and-seek  through  the  castle,  they  came  upon 
a  room  which,  in  all  probability,  had  not  been  opened  for 
thirty  years.  It  was  the  library.  There  they  found  a 
thousand  volumes,  or  something  near  that  number. 

Each  followed  her  own  bent  in  the  choice  of  books. 
Mary,  the  gentle,  sentimental  Mary,  preferred  novels  ;  the 
turbulent   and   determined   Bertha,   history.       Then  they 


JEAN    OULLIER.  39 

mingled  their  reading  in  a  common  fund;  Mary  told  Paul 
and  Virginia  and  Amadis  to  Bertha,  and  Bertha  told 
Mèzeray  and  Velly  to  Mary.  The  result  of  such  desultory 
reading  was,  of  course,  that  the  two  young  girls  grew  up 
with  many  false  notions  about  real  life  and  the  habits  and 
requirements  of  a  world  they  had  never  seen,  and  had,  in 
truth,  never  heard  of. 

At  the  time  they  made  their  first  communion  the  vicar 
of  Machecoul,  who  loved  them  for  their  piety  and  the 
goodness  of  their  heart,  did  risk  a  few  remarks  to  their 
father  on  the  peculiar  existence  such  a  bringing-up  must 
produce;  but  his  friendly  remarks  made  no  impression  on 
the  selfish  indifference  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday.  The 
education  we  have  described  was  continued,  and  ijuch 
habits  and  ways  were  the  result  that,  thanks  to  their 
already  false  position,  poor  Bertha  and  her  sister  acqu  ired 
a  very  bad  reputation  throughout  the  neighborhood. 

The  fact  was,  the  Marquis  de  Souday  was  surroundei  by 
little  newly  made  nobles,  who  envied  him  his  truly  illus- 
trious name,  and  asked  nothing  better  than  to  fling  back 
upon  him  the  contempt  with  which  his  ancestors  had  prob- 
ably treated  theirs.  So  when  they  saw  him  keep  in  his 
own  house,  and  call  his  daughters,  the  children  of  an  ille- 
gitimate union,  they  began  to  trumpet  forth  the  evils  of 
his  life  in  London  ;  they  exaggerated  his  wrong-doing  and 
made  poor  Eva  (saved  by  a  miracle  from  a  life  of  degrada- 
tion) a  common  woman  of  the  town.  Consequently,  little 
by  little,  the  country  squires  of  Beauvoir,  Saint-Leger, 
Bourgneuf,  Saint-Philbert,  and  Grand-Lieu,  avoided  the 
marquis,  under  pretence  that  he  degraded  the  nobility,  — 
a  matter  about  which,  taking  into  account  the  mushroom 
character  of  their  own  rank,  they  were  very  good  to  concern 
themselves. 

But  soon  it  was  not  the  men  only  who  disapproved  of 
the  Marquis  de  Souday's  conduct.  The  beauty  of  the  twin 
sisters  roused  the  enmity  of  the  mothers  and  daughters  in 
a  circuit  of  thirty  miles,   and  that  was   infinitely  more 


40  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

alarming.  If  Bertha  and  Mary  had  been  ugly  the  hearts 
of  these  charitable  ladies  and  young  ladies,  naturally 
inclined  to  Christian  mercy,  would  perhaps  have  forgiven 
the  poor  devil  of  a  father  for  his  improper  paternity  ;  but 
it  was  impossible  not  to  be  shocked  at  the  sight  of  two 
such  spurious  creatures,  crushing  by  their  distinction, 
their  nobility,  and  their  personal  charm,  the  well-born 
young  ladies  of  the  neighborhood.  Such  insolent  supe- 
riority deserved  neither  mercy  nor  compassion. 

The  indignation  against  the  poor  girls  was  so  general 
that  even  if  they  had  never  given  any  cause  for  gossip  or 
calumny,  gossip  and  calumny  would  have  swept  their 
wings  over  them.  Imagine,  therefore,  what  was  likely  to 
happen,  and  did  actually  happen,  when  the  masculine  and 
eccentric  habits  of  the  sisters  were  fully  known!  One 
universal  hue-and-cry  of  reprobation  arose  from  the  depart- 
ment of  the  Loire-Inférieure  and  echoed  through  those  of 
La  Vendée  and  the  Maine-et-Loire  ;  and  if  it  had  not  been 
for  the  sea,  which  bounds  the  coast  of  the  Loire-Inférieure, 
that  reprobation  would,  undoubtedly,  have  spread  as  far  to 
the  west  as  it  did  to  the  south  and  east.  All  classes, 
bourgeois  and  nobles,  city-folk  and  country-folk,  had  their 
say  about  it.  Young  men,  who  had  hardly  seen  Mary  and 
Bertha,  and  did  not  know  them,  spoke  of  the  daughters  of 
the  Marquis  de  Souday  with  meaning  smiles,  expressive  of 
hopes,  if  not  of  memories.  Dowagers  crossed  themselves 
on  pronouncing  their  names,  and  nurses  threatened  little 
children  when  they  were  naughty  with  goblin  tales  of 
them. 

The  most  indulgent  confined  themselves  to  attributing  to 
the  twins  the  three  virtues  of  Harlequin,  usually  regarded 
as  the  attributes  of  the  disciples  of  Saint-Hubert, — namely, 
love,  gambling,  and  wine.  Others,  however,  declared  that 
the  little  castle  of  Souday  was  every  night  the  scene  of 
orgies  such  as  chronicles  of  the  regency  alone  could  show. 
A  few  imaginative  persons  went  further,  and  declared  that 
one  of  its  ruined  towers  —  abandoned  to  the  innocent  loves 


JEAN   OULLIER.  41 

of  a  flock  of  pigeons  —  was  a  repetition  of  the  famous  Tour 
de  Nesle,  of  licentious  and  homicidal  memory. 

In  short,  so  much  was  said  about  Bertha  and  Mary  that, 
no  matter  what  had  been  and  then  was  the  purity  of  their 
lives  and  the  innocence  of  their  actions,  they  became  an 
object  of  horror  to  the  society  of  the  whole  region.  Through 
the  servants  of  private  houses,  through  the  workmen 
employed  by  the  bourgeoisie,  this  hatred  and  horror  of 
society  filtered  down  among  the  peasantry,  so  that  the 
whole  population  in  smocks  and  wooden  shoes  (if  we 
except  a  few  old  blind  men  and  helpless  women  to  whom 
the  twins  had  been  kind)  echoed  far  and  wide  the  absurd 
stories  invented  by  the  big-wigs.  There  was  not  a  wood- 
man, not  a  laborer  in  Machecoul,  not  a  farmer  in  Saint- 
Philbert  and  Aigrefeuille  that  did  not  feel  himself  degraded 
in  raising  his  hat  to  them. 

The  peasantry  at  last  gave  Bertha  and  Mary  a  nickname  ; 
and  this  nickname,  starting  from  the  lower  classes,  was 
adopted  by  acclamation  among  the  upper,  as  a  just  charac- 
terization of  the  lawless  habits  and  appetites  attributed  to 
the  young  girls.  They  were  called  the  she- wolves  (a  term, 
as  we  all  know,  equivalent  to  sluts), —  the  she- wolves  of 
Machecoul. 


42  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


V. 


A    LITTER   OF    WOLVES. 

The  Marquis  de  Souday  was  utterly  indifferent  to  all  these 
signs  of  public  animadversion;  in  fact,  he  seemed  to  ignore 
their  existence.  When  he  observed  that  his  neighbors  no 
longer  returned  the  few  visits  that  from  time  to  time  he 
felt  obliged  to  pay  to  them,  he  rubbed  his  hands  with  sat- 
isfaction at  being  released  from  social  duties,  which  he 
hated  and  only  performed  when  constrained  and  forced  to 
do  so  either  by  his  daughters  or  by  Jean  Oullier. 

Every  now  and  then  some  whisper  of  the  calumnies  that 
were  circulating  about  Bertha  and  Mary  reached  him  ;  but 
he  was  so  happy  with  his  factotum,  his  daughters,  and  his 
hounds,  that  he  felt  he  should  be  compromising  the  tran- 
quillity he  enjoyed  if  he  took  the  slightest  notice  of  such 
absurd  reports.  Accordingly,  he  continued  to  course  the 
hares  daily  and  hunt  the  boar  on  grand  occasions,  and  play 
whist  nightly  with  the  two  poor  calumniated  ones. 

Jean  Oullier  was  far  from  being  as  philosophical  as  his 
master;  but  then  it  must  be  said  that  in  his  position  he 
heard  much  more  than  the  marquis  did.  His  affection  for 
the  two  young  girls  had  now  become  fanaticism  ;  he  spent 
his  life  in  watching  them,  whether  they  sat,  softly  smiling, 
in  the  salon  of  the  château,  or  whether,  bending  forward 
on  their  horses'  necks,  with  sparkling  eyes  and  animated 
faces,  they  galloped  at  his  side,  with  their  long  locks 
floating  in  the  wind  from  beneath  the  broad  brims  of  their 
felt  hats  and  undulating  feathers.  Seeing  them  so  brave 
and  capable,  and  at  the  same  time  so  good  and  tender  to 


A   LITTER    OF   WOLVES.  43 

their  father  and  himself,  his  heart  swelled  with  pride 
and  happiness;  he  felt  himself  as  having  a  share  in  the 
development  of  these  two  admirable  creatures,  and  he  won- 
dered why  all  the  world  should  not  be  willing  to  kneel 
down  to  them. 

Consequently,  the  first  persons  who  risked  telling  him 
of  the  rumors  current  in  the  neighborhood  were  so  sharply 
rebuked  for  it  that  they  were  frightened  and  warned  others  ; 
but  Bertha  and  Mary's  true  father  needed  no  words  to 
inform  him  what  was  secretly  believed  of  the  two  dear 
objects  of  his  love.  From  a  smile,  a  glance,  a  gesture,  a 
sign,  he  guessed  the  malicious  thoughts  of  all  with  a 
sagacity  that  made  him  miserable.  The  contempt  that 
poor  and  rich  made  no  effort  to  disguise  affected  him 
deeply.  If  he  had  allowed  himself  to  follow  his  impulses 
he  would  have  picked  a  quarrel  with  every  contemptuous 
face,  and  corrected  some  by  knocking  them  down,  and 
others  by  a  pitched  battle.  But  his  good  sense  told  him 
that  Bertha  and  Mary  needed  another  sort  of  support,  and 
that  blows  given  or  received  would  prove  absolutely  noth- 
ing in  their  defence.  Besides,  he  dreaded  —  and  this  was, 
in  fact,  his  greatest  fear  —  that  the  result  of  some  quarrel, 
if  he  provoked  it,  might  be  that  the  young  girls  would  be 
made  aware  of  the  public  feeling  against  them. 

Poor  Jean  Oullier  therefore  bowed  his  head  before  this 
cruelly  unjust  condemnation,  and  tears  and  fervent  prayers 
to  God,  the  supreme  redressor  of  the  cruelties  and  injus- 
tices of  men,  alone  bore  testimony  to  his  grief;  but  in  his 
heart  he  fell  into  a  state  of  profound  misanthropy.  See- 
ing none  about  him  but  the  enemies  of  his  two  dear  chil- 
dren, how  could  he  help  hating  mankind?  And  he  pre- 
pared himself  for  the  day  when  some  future  revolution 
might  enable  him  to  return  evil  for  evil. 

The  revolution  of  1830  had  just  occurred,  but  it  had  not 
given  Jean  Oullier  the  opportunity  he  craved  to  put  these 
evil  designs  into  execution.  Nevertheless,  as  rioting  and 
disturbances  were  not  yet  altogther  quelled  in  the  streets 


44  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

of  Paris,  and  might  still  be  communicated  to  the  provinces, 
he  watched  and  waited. 

On  a  fine  morning  in  September,  1831,  the  Marquis  de 
Souday,  his  daughters,  Jean  Oullier,  and  the  pack  — 
which,  though  frequently  renewed  since  we  made  its 
acquaintance,  had  not  increased  in  numbers  —  were  hunt- 
ing in  the  forest  of  Machecoul. 

It  was  an  occasion  impatiently  awaited  by  the  marquis, 
who  for  the  last  three  months  had  been  expecting  grand 
sport  from  it,  —  the  object  being  to  capture  a  litter  of 
young  wolves,  which  Jean  Oullier  had  discovered  before 
their  eyes  were  opened,  and  which  he  had,  being  a  faithful 
and  knowing  huntsman  to  a  Master  of  Wolves,  watched 
over  and  cared  for  for  several  months.  This  last  state- 
ment may  demand  some  explanations  to  those  of  our 
readers  who  are  not  familiar  with  the  noble  art  of  venery. 

When  the  Duc  de  Biron  (beheaded,  in  1602,  by  order  of 
Henri  IV.)  was  a  youth,  he  said  to  his  father  at  one  of 
the  sieges  of  the  religious  wars,  "Give  me  fifty  cavalry; 
there  's  a  detachment  of  two  hundred  men,  sallying  out  to 
forage.  I  can  kill  every  one  of  them,  and  the  town  must 
surrender."  "Suppose  it  does,  what  then?"  "What 
then?  Why,  I  say  the  town  will  surrender."  "Yes;  and 
the  king  will  have  no  further  need  of  us.  We  must  con- 
tinue necessary,  you  ninny  !  "  The  two  hundred  foragers 
were  not  killed.  The  town  was  not  taken,  and  Biron  and 
his  son  continued  "necessary;  "  that  is  to  say,  being  neces- 
sary they  retained  the  favor  and  the  wages  of  the  king. 

Well,  it  is  with  wolves  as  it  was  with  those  foragers 
spared  by  the  Duc  de  Biron.  If  there  were  no  longer  any 
wolves  how  could  there  be  a  Wolf -master?  Therefore  we 
must  forgive  Jean  Oullier,  who  was,  as  we  may  say,  a 
corporal  of  wolves,  for  showing  some  tender  care  for  the 
nurslings  and  not  slaying  them,  them  and  their  mother, 
with  the  stern  rigor  he  would  have  shown  to  an  elderly 
wolf  of  the  masculine  sex. 

But  that  is  not  all.     Hunting  an  old  wolf  in  the  open  is 


A   LITTER   OF   WOLVES.  45 

impracticable,  and  in  a  battue  it  is  monotonous  and  tire- 
some; but  to  hunt  a  young  wolf  six  or  seven  months  old 
is  easy,  agreeable,  and  amusing.  So,  in  order  to  procure 
this  charming  sport  for  his  master,  Jean  Oullier,  on  find- 
ing the  litter,  had  taken  good  care  not  to  disturb  or 
frighten  the  mother;  he  concerned  himself  not  at  all  for 
the  loss  of  sundry  of  the  neighbors'  sheep,  which  she 
would  of  course  inevitably  provide  for  her  little  ones.  He 
had  paid  the  latter  several  visits,  with  touching  solicitude, 
during  their  infancy,  to  make  sure  that  no  one  had  laid  a 
disrespectful  hand  upon  them,  and  he  rejoiced  with  great 
joy  when  he  one  day  found  the  den  depopulated  and  knew 
that  the  mother-wolf  had  taken  off  her  cubs  on  some 
excursion. 

The  day  had  now  come  when,  as  Jean  Oullier  judged, 
they  were  in  fit  condition  for  what  was  wanted  of  them. 
He  therefore,  on  this  grand  occasion,  hedged  them  in  to 
an  open  part  of  the  forest,  and  loosed  the  six  dogs  upon 
one  of  them. 

The  poor  devil  of  a  cub,  not  knowing  what  all  this  trum- 
peting and  barking  meant,  lost  his  head  and  instantly 
quitted  the  covert,  where  he  left  his  mother  and  brothers 
and  where  he  still  had  a  chance  to  save  his  skin.  He  took 
unadvisedly  to  another  open,  and  there,  after  running  for 
half  an  hour  in  a  circuit  like  a  hare,  he  became  very  tired 
from  an  exertion  to  which  he  was  not  accustomed,  and 
feeling  his  big  paws  swelling  and  stiffening  he  sat  down 
artlessly  on  his  tail  and  waited. 

He  did  not  have  to  wait  long  before  he  found  out  what 
was  wanted  of  him,  for  Domino,  the  leading  hound,  a 
Vendéan,  with  a  rough  gray  coat,  came  up  almost  immedi- 
ately and  broke  his  back  with  one  crunch  of  his  jaw. 

Jean  Oullier  called  in  his  dogs,  took  them  back  to  the 
starting-point,  and  ten  minutes  later  a  brother  of  the 
deceased  was  afoot,  with  the  hounds  at  his  heels.  This 
one  however,  with  more  sense  than  the  other,  did  not 
leave   the  covert,  and  various   sorties  and  charges,  made 


46  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

sometimes  by  the  other  cubs  and  sometimes  by  the  mother- 
wolf,  who  offered  herself  voluntarily  to  the  dogs,  delayed 
for  a  time  his  killing.  But  Jean  Oullier  knew  his  busi- 
ness too  well  to  let  such  actions  compromise  success.  As 
soon  as  the  cub  began  to  head  in  a  straight  line  with  the 
gait  of  an  old  wolf,  he  called  off  his  dogs,  took  them  to 
where  the  cub  had  broken,  and  put  them  on  the  scent. 

Pressed  too  closely  by  his  pursuers,  the  poor  wolfiing 
tried  to  double.  He  returned  upon  his  steps,  and  left  the 
wood  with  such  innocent  ignorance  that  he  came  plump 
upon  the  marquis  and  his  daughters.  Surprised,  and  los- 
ing his  head,  he  tried  to  slip  between  the  legs  of  the 
horses;  but  M.  de  Souday,  leaning  from  his  saddle,  caught 
him  by  the  tail,  and  flung  him  to  the  dogs,  who  had  fol- 
lowed his  doubling. 

These  successful  kills  immensely  delighted  the  marquis, 
who  did  not  choose  to  end  the  matter  here.  He  discussed 
with  Jean  Oullier  whether  it  was  best  to  call  in  the  dogs 
and  attack  at  the  same  place,  or  whether,  as  the  rest  of 
the  cubs  were  evidently  afoot,  it  would  not  be  best  to  let 
the  hounds  into  the  wood  pell-mell  to  find  as  they  pleased. 

But  the  mother- wolf,  knowing  probably  that  they  would 
soon  be  after  the  rest  of  her  progeny,  crossed  the  road  not 
ten  steps  distant  from  the  dogs,  while  the  marquis  and 
Jean  Oullier  were  arguing.  The  moment  the  little  pack, 
who  had  not  been  re-coupled,  saw  the  animal,  they  gave 
one  cry,  and,  wild  with  excitement,  rushed  upon  her 
traces.  Calls,  shouts,  whips,  nothing  could  hold  them, 
nothing  stop  them.  Jean  Oullier  made  play  with  his  legs, 
and  the  marquis  and  his  daughters  put  their  horses  to  a 
gallop  for  the  same  purpose;  but  the  hounds  had  some- 
thing else  than  a  timid,  ignorant  cub  to  deal  with.  Before 
them  was  a  bold,  vigorous,  enterprising  animal,  running 
confidently,  as  if  sure  of  her  haven,  in  a  straight  line, 
indifferent  to  valleys,  rocks,  mountains,  or  water -courses, 
without  fear,  without  haste,  trotting  along  at  an  even  pace, 
sometimes  surrounded  by  the  dogs,  whom  she  mastered  by 


A    LITTER   OF   WOLVES.  47 

the  power  of  an  oblique  look  and  the  snapping  of  her 
formidable  jaws. 

The  wolf,  after  crossing  three  fourths  of  the  forest, 
broke  out  to  the  plain  as  though  she  were  making  for  the 
forest  of  Grand'Lande.  Jean  Oullier  had  kept  up,  thanks 
to  the  elasticity  of  his  legs,  and  was  now  only  three  or 
four  hundred  steps  behind  the  dogs.  The  marquis  and  his 
daughters,  forced  by  the  ditches  to  follow  the  curve  of  the 
paths,  were  left  behind.  But  when  they  reached  the  edge 
of  the  woods  and  had  ridden  up  the  slope  which  overlooks 
the  little  village  of  Marne,  they  saw,  over  a  mile  ahead  of 
them,  between  Machecoul  and  La  BrilTardière,  in  the  midst 
of  the  gorse  which  covers  the  ground  near  those  villages 
and  La  Jacquelerie,  Jean  Oullier,  his  dogs,  and  his  wolf, 
still  in  the  same  relative  positions,  and  following  a  straight 
line  at  the  same  gait. 

The  success  of  the  first  two  chases  and  the  rapidity  of 
the  ride  stirred  the  blood  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday. 

"Morbleu!  "  he  cried;  "I  'd  give  six  years  of  life  to  be 
at  this  moment  between  Saint-Etienne  de  Mermorte  and 
La  Guimarière  and  send  a  ball  into  that  vixen  of  a  wolf." 

"She  is  making  for  the  forest  of  Grand'Lande,"  said 
Mary. 

"Yes,"  said  Bertha;  "but  she  will  certainly  come  back 
to  the  den,  so  long  as  the  cubs  have  not  left  it.  She  won't 
forsake  her  own  wood  long." 

"  I  think  it  would  be  better  to  go  back  to  the  den,  "  said 
Mary.  "  Don't  you  remember,  papa,  that  last  year  we  fol- 
lowed a  wolf  which  led  us  a  chase  of  ten  hours,  and  all  for 
nothing;  and  we  had  to  go  home  with  our  horses  blown, 
the  dogs  lame,  and  all  the  mortification  of  a  dead  failure?" 

"Ta,  ta,  ta!"  cried  the  marquis;  "that  wolf  wasn't  a 
she-wolf.  You  can  go  back,  if  you  like,  mademoiselle;  as 
for  me,  I  shall  follow  the  hounds.  Corbleu!  it  shall 
never  be  said   I  wasn't  in  at  the  death." 

"  We  shall  go  where  you  go,  papa,  "  cried  both  girls 
together. 


48  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

"Very  good;  forward,  then!"  cried  the  marquis,  vigor- 
ously spurring  his  horse,  and  galloping  down  the  slope. 
The  way  he  took  was  stony  and  furrowed  with  the  deep 
ruts  of  which  Lower  Poitou  keeps  up  the  tradition  to  this 
day.  The  horses  stumbled  repeatedly,  and  would  soon 
have  been  down  if  they  had  not  been  held  up  firmly;  it 
was  evidently  impossible  to  reach  the  forest  of  Grand' 
Lande  before  the  game. 

Monsieur  de  Souday,  better  mounted  than  his  daughters, 
and  able  to  spur  his  beast  more  vigorously,  had  gained 
some  rods  upon  them.  Annoyed  by  the  roughness  of  the 
road,  he  turned  his  horse  suddenly  into  an  open  field 
beside  it,  and  made  off  across  the  plain,  without  giving 
notice  to  his  daughters.  Bertha  and  Mary,  thinking  that 
they  were  still  following  their  father,  continued  their  way 
along  the  dangerous  road. 

In  about  fifteen  minutes  from  the  time  they  lost  sight 
of  their  father  they  came  to  a  place  where  the  road  was 
deeply  sunken  between  two  slopes,  at  the  top  of  which 
were  rows  of  trees,  the  branches  meeting  and  interlacing 
above  their  heads.  There  they  stopped  suddenly,  think- 
ing that  they  heard  at  a  little  distance  the  well-known 
barking  of  their  dogs.  Almost  at  the  same  moment  a  gun 
went  off  close  beside  them,  and  a  large  hare,  with  bloody 
hanging  ears,  ran  from  the  hedge  and  along  the  road  before 
them,  while  loud  cries  of  "Follow!  follow!  tally-ho!  tally- 
ho!  "  came  from  the  field  above  the  narrow  roadway.1 

The  sisters  thought  they  had  met  the  hunt  of  some  of 
their  neighbors,  and  were  about  to  discreetly  disappear, 
when  from  the  hole  in  the  hedge  through  which  the  hare 
had  forced  her  way,  came  Eustaud,  one  of  their  father's 
dogs,  yelping  loudly,  and  after  Eustaud,  Faraud,  Bellaude, 
Domino,  and  Fanfare,  one  after  another,  all  in  pursuit 
of  the  wretched  hare,  as  if  they  had  chased  that  day  no 
higher  game. 

1  The  English  cry  "  tally-ho  "  comes  from  the  French  cry  taillis  au, — 
"  to  the  copse,"  or  "  covert." 


A   LITTER   OF   WOLVES.  49 

The  tail  of  the  last  clog  was  scarcely  through  the  opening 
before  a  human  face  appeared  there.  This  face  belonged 
to  a  pale,  frightened-looking  young  man,  with  touzled 
head  and  haggard  eyes,  who  made  desperate  efforts  to 
bring  his  body  after  his  head  through  the  narrow  passage, 
calling  out,  as  he  struggled  with  the  thorns  and  briars, 
"Tally-ho!  tally-ho!  "  in  the  same  voice  Bertha  and  Mary 
had  heard  about  five  minutes  earlier. 


VOL.   I.  —  A. 


50  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 


VI. 


THE   WOUNDED    HARE. 


Among  the  hedges  of  Lower  Poitou  (constructed,  like  the 
Breton  hedges,  with  bent  and  twisted  branches  interlacing 
each  other)  it  is  no  reason,  because  a  hare  and  six  hounds 
have  passed  through,  that  the  opening  they  make  should 
be  considered  in  the  light  of  a  porte-cochere  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, the  luckless  young  man  was  held  fast  as  though  his 
neck  were  in  the  collar  of  the  guillotine.  In  vain  he 
pushed  and  struggled  violently,  and  tore  his  hands  and 
face  till  both  were  bloody;  it  was  impossible  for  him  to 
advance  one  inch. 

And  yet  he  did  not  lose  courage;  he  fought  on  with 
might  and  main,  until  suddenly  two  peals  of  girlish  laugh- 
ter arrested  his  struggles.  He  looked  round,  and  saw  the 
two  riders  bending  over  the  pommels  of  their  saddles,  and 
making  no  effort  either  to  restrain  their  amusement  or 
conceal  the  cause  of  it. 

Ashamed  of  being  laughed  at  by  two  such  pretty  girls 
(he  was  only  twenty),  and  perceiving  how  really  grotesque 
his  appearance  must  be,  the  young  man  tried  to  withdraw 
his  head  from  the  hole  ;  but  it  was  written  above  that  that 
unlucky  hedge  should  be  fatal  to  him  either  way.  The 
thorns  hooked  themselves  into  his  clothing  and  the  branches 
into  his  game-bag,  so  that  it  was  literally  impossible  for 
him  to  get  back.  There  he  was,  caught  in  the  hedge  as  if 
in  a  trap;  and  this  second  misfortune  only  increased  the 
convulsive  hilarity  of  the  two  spectators. 

The  luckless  youth  no  longer  used  mere  vigorous  energy 
to  free  himself  from  the  thicket.     His  struggles  became 


THE    WOUNDED    HARE.  51 

furious,  almost  frenzied,  and  in  this  last  and  desperate 
attempt  his  face  assumed  an  expression  of  such  pitiable 
despair  that  Mary,  the  gentle  one,  felt  touched. 

"We  ought  not  to  laugh,  Bertha,"  she  said;  "don't  you 
see  it  hurts  him?  " 

"Yes,  I  see,"  replied  Bertha;  "but  how  can  we  help  it? 
I  can't  stop  myself." 

Then,  still  laughing,  she  jumped  off  her  horse  and  ran 
to  the  poor  fellow  to  help  him. 

"Monsieur,"  she  said,  "I  think  a  little  assistance  may 
be  useful  in  getting  you  out  of  that  hedge.  Pray  accept 
the  help  my  sister  and  I  are  most  ready  to  offer." 

But  the  girl's  laughter  had  pricked  the  vanity  of  the 
youth  even  more  than  the  thorns  had  pricked  his  body  ;  so 
that  no  matter  how  courteously  Bertha  worded  her  pro- 
posal, it  did  not  make  the  unfortunate  captive  forget  the 
hilarity  of  which  he  had  been  the  object.  So  he  kept 
silence;  and,  with  the  air  of  a  man  resolved  to  get  out  of 
his  troubles  without  the  help  of  any  one,  he  made  a  last 
and  still  more  strenuous  effort. 

He  lifted  himself  by  his  wrists  and  endeavored  to  propel 
himself  forward  by  the  sort  of  diagonal  motion  with  the 
lower  part  of  his  body  that  all  animals  of  the  snake  genus 
employ.  Unluckily,  in  making  this  movement  his  fore- 
head came  in  contact  with  the  branch  of  a  wild  apple-tree, 
which  the  shears  of  the  farmer  who  made  the  hedge  had 
sharpened  like  the  end  of  a  pike.  This  branch  cut  and 
scraped  the  skin  like  a  well-tempered  razor;  and  the  young 
man,  feeling  himself  seriously  wounded,  gave  a  cry  as  the 
blood,  spurting  freely,  covered  his  whole  face. 

When  the  sisters  saw  the  accident,  of  which  they  were 
involuntarily  the  cause,  they  ran  to  the  young  man,  seized 
him  by  the  shoulders,  and  uniting  their  efforts,  with  a 
vigor  and  strength  not  to  be  met  with  among  ordinary 
women,  they  managed  to  drag  him  through  the  hedge  and 
seat  him  on  the  bank.  Mary,  who  could  not  know  that 
the  wound  was   really  a  slight  one,  and  only  judged  by 


52  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

appearances,  became  very  pale  and  trembling,  as  for 
Bertha,  less  impressionable  than  her  sister,  she  did  not 
lose  her  head  for  a  single  moment. 

"Kun  to  that  brook,"  she  said  to  Mary,  "and  wet  your 
handkerchief,  so  that  I  may  wash  off  the  blood  that  is 
blinding  the  poor  fellow." 

When  Mary  had  done  as  she  was  told  and  had  returned 
with  the  moistened  handkerchief,  she  asked  the  young  man 
in  her  gentle  way  :  — 

"Do  you  suffer  much,  monsieur?  " 

"Excuse  me,  mademoiselle,"  replied  the  young  man, 
"but  I  have  so  much  on  my  mind  at  this  moment  that  I  do 
not  know  whether  I  suffer  most  on  the  inside  or  the  out- 
side of  my  head."  Then  suddenly  bursting  into  sobs,  with 
difficulty  restrained  till  then,  he  cried  out,  "  Ah  !  the  good 
God  has  punished  me  for  disobeying  mamma!  " 

Although  the  youth  who  spoke  was  certainly  young,  — 
for,  as  we  have  said,  he  was  only  twenty,  —  there  was 
something  so  infantine  in  his  accent  and  so  ludicrously 
out  of  keeping  with  his  height  and  his  huntsman's  dress 
in  his  words,  that  the  sisters,  in  spite  of  their  compas- 
sion for  his  wound,  could  not  restrain  another  peal  of 
laughter. 

The  poor  lad  cast  a  look  of  entreaty  and  reproach,  upon 
them,  while  two  big  tears  rolled  down  his  cheeks  ;  then  he 
tore  from  his  head,  impatiently,  the  handkerchief  wet 
with  water  from  the  brook,  which  Mary  had  laid  upon  his 
forehead. 

"Don't  do  that  !  "  said  Bertha. 

"Let  me  alone!"  he  cried.  "I  don't  choose  to  receive 
attentions  I  have  to  pay  for  in  ridicule.  I  am  sorry  now 
I  did  not  follow  my  first  idea  and  run  away,  at  the  risk  of 
getting  a  worse  wound." 

"Yes;  but  as  you  had  the  sense  not  to  do  so,"  said 
Mary,  "have  sense  enough  now  to  let  me  put  that  bandage 
back  upon  your  head." 

Picking  up  the  handkerchief  she  went  to  him  with  such 


THE   WOUNDED   HARE.  63 

a  kindly  expression  of  interest  that  he.  shaking  his  head, 
not  in  sign  of  refusal  but  of  utter  depression,  said  :  — 

"Do  as  you  please,  mademoiselle." 

"Oh!  oh!"  exclaimed  Bertha,  who  had  not  lost  a  sin- 
gle expression  on  the  countenance  of  the  young  man;  "for 
a  hunter  you  seem  to  me  rather  easily  upset,  monsieur." 

"In  the  first  place,  mademoiselle,  I  am  not  a  hunter, 
and  after  what  has  just  happened  to  me  I  don't  wish  ever 
to  become  one." 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Bertha,  in  the  same  laughing 
tone  which  had  already  provoked  the  youth,  "  but  judging 
by  the  fury  with  which  you  assaulted  the  briers  and 
thorns,  and  especially  by  the  eagerness  with  which  you 
urged  on  our  dogs,  I  think  I  had  every  right  to  at  least 
imagine  you  a  hunter." 

"  Oh,  no,  mademoiselle  ;  I  am  not  a  hunter.  I  was  car- 
ried away  by  a  momentary  excitement,  which  I  cannot 
now  at  all  understand.  At  present  I  am  perfectly  cool, 
and  I  know  how  right  my  mother  was  to  call  the  amuse- 
ment of  hunting,  which  consists  in  finding  pleasure  and 
gratified  vanity  in  the  agony  and  death  of  a  poor,  defence- 
less, dumb  animal,  ridiculous  and  degrading." 

"Take  care,  monsieur!  "  cried  Bertha.  "To  us,  who  are 
ridiculous  and  degraded  enough  to  like  that  amusement, 
you  seem  a  good  deal  like  the  fox  in  the  fable." 

Just  then  Mary,  who  had  gone  a  second  time  to  the 
brook  to  wet  her  handkerchief,  was  about  to  re-bandage 
the  young  man's  forehead.  But  he  pushed  her  away  from 
him  angrily. 

"In  Heaven's  name,  mademoiselle,"  he  cried,  "spare 
me  your  attentions  !  Don't  you  hear  how  your  sister  con- 
tinues to  laugh  at  me?  " 

"No,  let  me  tie  this  on,  I  beg  of  you,"  said  Mary. 

But  he,  not  allowing  himself  to  be  persuaded  by  the 
sweetness  of  her  voice,  rose  to  his  knees,  with  the  evident 
intention  of  escaping  altogether.  Such  obstinacy,  which 
was  more  that  of  a  child  than  of  a  man,  exasperated  the 


54  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

irascible  Bertha  ;  and  her  irritation,  though  inspired  by  the 
purest  feelings  of  humanity,  was  none  the  less  expressed  in 
rather  too  energetic  a  way  for  one  of  her  sex. 

"  Confound  it  !  "  she  cried,  as  her  father  might  have 
done  under  similar  circumstances,  "the  provoking  little 
fellow  won't  hear  reason!  Put  on  the  bandage,  Mary; 
I'll  hold  his  hands,  and  we'll  see  if  he  stirs  then." 

And  Bertha,  seizing  the  young  man's  wrists  with  a  mus- 
cular strength  which  paralyzed  all  his  efforts  to  get  away, 
managed  to  facilitate  Mary's  task  so  that  she  was  able  to 
bind  the  wound  and  tie  the  handkerchief,  which  she  did 
with  a  nicety  that  might  have  done  honor  to  a  pupil  of 
Dupuytren  or  Jobert. 

"Now,  monsieur,"  said  Bertha,  "you  are  in  a  fit  state 
to  go  home,  and  get  away  from  us,  as  you  are  longing  to 
do,  without  so  much  as  thank  you.     You  can  go." 

But  in  spite  of  this  permission  and  his  restored  liberty, 
the  youth  did  not  budge.  He  seemed  surprised  and  also 
deeply  humiliated  at  having  fallen  into  the  hands  of  two 
such  strong  women;  his  eyes  turned  from  Bertha'to  Mary 
and  from  Mary  to  Bertha,  and  still  he  was  unable  to  find 
a  word  to  say.  At  last,  seeing  no  other  way  out  of  his 
embarrassment,  he  hid  his  face  in  his  hands. 

"Oh!  "  said  Mary,  kindly;  "do  you  feel  ill?  " 

The  youth  made  no  answer.  Bertha  gently  moved  his 
hands  from  his  face,  and  finding  that  he  was  really 
weeping,  she  became  as  compassionate  and  gentle  as  her 
sister. 

"You  are  more  hurt  than  you  seemed  to  be;  is  it  the 
pain  that  makes  you  cry?  "  she  said.  "If  so,  get  on  my 
horse  or  my  sister's,  and  we  will  take  you  home." 

But  to  this  the  young  man  eagerly  made  a  sign  in  the 
negative. 

"Come,"  said  Bertha,  "enough  of  this  childish  nonsense! 
We  have  affronted  you;  but  how  could  we  know  that  the 
skin  of  a  girl  was  under  your  hunting-jacket.  Neverthe- 
less, we  were  wrong;  we  admit  it,  and  we  beg  your  pardon. 


THE    WOUNDED    HARE.  55 

You  may  not  think  we  do  so  in  a  proper  manm-r;  but 
remember  the  situation,  and  say  to  yourself  that  aim :é]  il  y 
is  all  you  can  expect  from  two  girls  so  neglected  by  Heaven 
as  to  spend  their  time  in  the  ridiculous  amusement  which 
your  mother  unfortunately  disapproves.  Now,  do  you  mean 
to  be  unforgiving?  " 

"No,  mademoiselle,"  replied  the  youth;  "it  is  only  with 
myself  that  I  am  annoyed." 

"Why  so?" 

"  I  can  hardly  tell  you.  Perhaps  it  is  that  I  am  ashamed 
to  be  weaker  than  you,  — I,  a  man;  perhaps,  too,  I  am  all 
upset  at  the  thought  of  going  home.  What  can  I  say  to 
my  mother  to  explain  this  wound?  " 

The  two  girls  looked  at  each  other.  Women  as  they 
were,  they  would  have  cared  little  for  such  a  trifle;  but 
they  refrained  from  laughing,  strong  as  the  temptation 
was,  seeing  by  this  time  the  extreme  nervous  susceptibility 
of  the  young  man. 

"Well,  then,"  said  Bertha,  "if  you  are  no  longer  angry 
with  us,  let  us  shake  hands  and  part  friends." 

And  she  held  out  her  hand  as  a  man  might  have  done. 
The  youth  was  about  to  reply  with  a  like  gesture,  when 
Mary  made  a  sign  to  call  their  attention,  by  lifting  her 
finger  in  the  air. 

"  Hush  !  "  said  Bertha,  listening  as  her  sister  did,  one 
hand  half  extended  toward  that  of  the  young  man. 

In  the  distance,  but  coming  rapidly  nearer,  they  heard 
the  sharp,  eager,  prolonged  yelping  of  hounds,  —  of  hounds 
that  were  scenting  game.  It  was  the  Marquis  de  Souday's 
pack,  still  in  pursuit  of  the  wounded  hare,  which  had  now 
doubled  on  them.  Bertha  pounced  on  the  young  man's 
gun,  the  right  barrel  of  which  was  still  loaded.  He  made 
a  gesture  as  if  to  stop  a  dangerous  imprudence,  but  the 
young  girl  only  smiled  at  him.  She  ran  the  ramrod  hastily 
down  the  loaded  barrel,  as  all  prudent  hunters  do  when 
about  to  use  a  gun  they  have  not  loaded  themselves,  and 
finding   that   the   weapon   was   in   proper    condition,    she 


56  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

advanced  a  few  steps,  handling  the  gun  with  an  ease  which 
showed  she  was  perfectly  familiar  with  the  use  of  it. 

Almost  at  the  same  moment  the  hare  darted  from  the 
hedge,  evidently  with  the  intention  of  returning  the  way 
it  came;  then,  perceiving  the  three  persons  who  stood 
there,  it  made  a  rapid  somersault  and  doubled  back.  Quick 
as  the  movement  was  Bertha  had  time  to  aim;  she  fired, 
and  the  animal,  shot  dead,  rolled  down  the  bank  into  the 
middle  of  the  road. 

Mary  had,  meantime,  advanced  like  her  sister  to  shake 
hands  with  the  young  man,  and  the  two  stood  looking  on 
at  what  was  happening  with  their  hands  clasped.  Bertha 
picked  up  the  hare,  and  returning  to  the  unknown  young 
man  who  still  held  Mary's  hand,  she  said,  giving  him  the 
game:  — 

"There,  monsieur,  there  's  an  excuse  for  you." 

"How  so?  "  he  asked. 

"  You  can  tell  your  mother  that  the  hare  ran  between 
you?'  legs  and  your  gun  went  off  without  your  knowledge  ; 
and  you  can  swear,  as  you  did  just  now,  that  it  shall 
never  happen  again.  The  hare  will  plead  extenuating 
circumstances." 

The  young  man  shook  his  head  in  a  hopeless  way. 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  should  never  dare  tell  my  mother  I 
have  disobeyed  her." 

"  Has  she  positively  forbidden  you  to  hunt?  " 

"  Oh,  dear,  yes  !  " 

"Then  you  are  poaching!"  said  Bertha;  "you  begin 
where  others  finish.  Well,  you  must  admit  you  have  a 
vocation  for  it." 

"Don't  joke,  mademoiselle.  You  have  been  so  good  to 
me  I  don't  want  to  get  angry  with  you;  I  should  only  be 
twice  as  unhappy  then." 

"You  have  but  one  alternative,  monsieur,"  said  Mary; 
"  either  tell  a  lie  —  which  you  will  not  do,  neither  do  we 
advise  it  —  or  acknowledge  the  whole  truth.  Believe  me, 
whatever  your  mother  may  think  of  your  amusing  yourself 


THE    WOUNDED    HARE.  57 

in  defiance  of  her  wishes,  your  frankness  will  disarm  her. 
Besides,  it  is  not  such  a  great  crime  to  kill  a  hare." 

"All  the  same  I  should  never  dare  to  tell  her." 

"Is  she  so  terrible  as  all  that?  "  inquired  Bertha. 

"  No,  mademoiselle  ;  she  is  very  kind  and  tender.  She 
indulges  all  my  wishes  and  foresees  my  fancies;  but  on 
this  one  matter  of  guns  she  is  resolute.  It  is  natural  she 
should  be,"  added  the  young  man,  sighing  ;  "my  father  was 
killed  in  hunting." 

"Then,  monsieur,"  said  Bertha,  gravely,  "our  levity  has 
been  all  the  more  misplaced,  and  we  regret  it  extremely. 
I  hope  you  will  forget  it  and  remember  only  our  regrets." 

"I  shall  only  remember,  mademoiselle,  the  kind  care 
you  have  bestowed  upon  me  ;  and  I,  in  turn,  hope  you  will 
forget  my  silly  fears  and  foolish  susceptibility." 

"No,  no,  we  shall  remember  them,"  said  Mary,  "to  pre- 
vent ourselves  from  ever  hurting  the  feelings  of  others  as 
we  hurt  yours;  for  see  what  the  consequences  have 
been  !  " 

While  Mary  was  speaking  Bertha  had  mounted  her 
horse.  Again  the  youth  held  out  his  hand,  though  timidly, 
to  Mary.  She  touched  it  with  the  points  of  her  fingers 
and  sprang  into  her  own  saddle.  Then,  calling  in  the 
dogs,  who  came  at  the  sound  of  their  voices,  the  sisters 
gave  rein  to  their  horses  and  rode  rapidly  away. 

The  youth  stood  looking  after  them,  silent  and  motion- 
less, until  they  had  disappeared  round  a  curve  of  the  road. 
Then  he  dropped  his  head  on  his  breast  and  continued 
thoughtful.  We  will  remain  a  while  with  this  new  per- 
sonage, for  we  ought  to  become  fully  acquainted  with  him. 


58  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


VIL 

MONSIEUR   MICHEL. 

What  had  just  happened  produced  such  a  powerful  im- 
pression on  the  young  man's  mind  that  after  the  girls 
had  disappeared  he  fancied  it  must  have  been  a  dream. 

He  was,  in  fact,  at  that  period  of  life  when  even  those 
who  are  destined  to  become  later  the  most  practical  of  men 
pay  tribute  to  the  romantic;  and  this  meeting  with  two 
young  girls,  so  different  from  those  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
seeing,  transported  him  at  once  into  the  fantastic  world  of 
youth's  first  dreams,  where  the  imagination  wanders  as  it 
pleases  among  the  castles  built  by  fairy  hands,  which  topple 
over  beside  the  path  of  life  as  we  advance  along  it. 

We  do  not  mean  to  say,  however,  that  our  young  man 
had  got  as  far  as  falling  in  love  with  either  of  the  two 
amazons,  but  he  felt  himself  spurred  to  the  keenest  curi- 
osity; for  this  strange  mixture  of  distinction,  beauty, 
elegance  of  manner,  and  cavalier  virility  struck  him  as 
extraordinary.  He  determined  to  see  these  girls  again, 
or,  at  any  rate,  to  find  out  who  they  were. 

Heaven  seemed  disposed  to  satisfy  his  curiosity  at  once. 
He  had  hardly  started  on  his  way  home,  and  was  not  more 
than  a  few  hundred  steps  from  the  spot  where  the  young 
girls  had  left  him,  when  he  met  an  individual  in  leather 
gaiters,  with  a  gun  and  a  hunting-horn  slung  over  his 
blouse  and  across  his  shoulders,  and  a  whip  in  his  hand. 
The  man  walked  fast  and  seemed  much  out  of  temper.  He 
was  evidently  the  huntsman  who  belonged  to  the  young 
women.  Accordingly  the  youth,  assuming  his  most  gra- 
cious and  smiling  manner,  accosted  him. 


MONSIEUR   MICHEL.  59 

"Friend,"  he  said,  "you  are  searching  for  two  young 
ladies,  I  think,  —  one  on  a  brown-bay  horse,  the  other  on 
a  roan  mare." 

"In  the  first  place,  I  am  not  your  friend,  for  I  don't 
know  you,"  said  the  man,  gruffly.  "I  am  looking  for  my 
dogs,  which  some  fool  turned  off  the  scent  of  a  wolf  they 
were  after  and  put  on  that  of  a  hare,  which  he  missed 
killing,  like  the  blunderer  that  he.  is." 

The  young  man  bit  his  lips.  The  man  in  the  blouse, 
whom  our  readers  no  doubt  recognize  as  Jean  Oullier,  went 
on  to  say  :  — 

"Yes,  I  saw  it  all  from  the  heights  of  Benaste,  which 
I  was  coming  down  when  our  game  doubled,  and  I  'd 
willingly  have  given  the  premium  which  the  Marquis 
de  Souday  allows  me  on  the  hunt  if  I  could  have  had 
that  lubber  within  reach  of  my  whip." 

The  youth  to  whom  he  spoke  thought  it  advisable  to 
make  no  sign  that  he  was  concerned  in  the  affair;  he  lis- 
tened, therefore,  to  Jean  Oullier's  allocution  as  if  it  were 
absolutely  of  no  interest  to  him,  and  said  merely  :  — 

"Oh!  do  you  belong  to  the  Marquis  de  Souday?  " 

Jean  Oullier  looked  askance  at  his  blundering  questioner. 

"I  belong  to  myself,"  said  the  old  Chouan.  "I  lead 
the  hounds  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  as  much  for  my 
pleasure  as  for  his." 

"Dear  me!  "  said  the  young  man,  as  if  speaking  to  him- 
self, "Mamma  never  told  me  the  marquis  was  married." 

"Well  then,"  interrupted  Oullier,  "I  tell  it  you  now, 
my  good  sir;  and  if  you  have  anything  to  say  against  it, 
I  '11  tell  you  something  else,  too.     Do  you  hear  me?  " 

Having  said  these  words  in  a  threatening  tone,  which 
his  hearer  seemed  not  to  understand,  Jean  Oullier,  without 
further  concerning  himself  as  to  what  the  other  might  be 
thinking,  turned  on  his  heel  and  walked  off  rapidly  in  the 
direction  of  Machecoul. 

Left  to  himself  the  young  man  took  a  few  more  steps  in 
the  path   he  had  taken  when  the   young   girls   left   him; 


60  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

then  turning  to  the  left  he  went  into  a  field.  In  that  field 
was  a  peasant  ploughing.  The  peasant  was  a  man  about 
forty  years  of  age,  who  was  distinguishable  from  the  peas- 
ants of  Poitou  by  a  shrewd  and  sly  expression  of  counte- 
nance peculiarly  Norman.  He  was  ruddy  in  complexion, 
his  eyes  were  keen  and  piercing;  but  his  constant  effort 
seemed  to  be  to  diminish,  or  rather  to  conceal,  their  keen- 
ness by  perpetually  blinking  them.  He  probably  thought 
that  proceeding  gave  a  look  of  stupidity,  or  at  least  of 
good  humor,  which  checked  the  distrust  of  others  ;  but  his 
artful  mouth,  with  its  corners  sharply  defined,  and  curling 
up  like  those  of  an  antique  Pan,  betrayed,  in  spite  of  him, 
that  he  was  one  of  those  wonderful  products  that  usually 
follow  the  crossing  of  Mans  and  Norman  blood. 

Although  the  young  man  made  directly  for  him,  he  did 
not  stop  his  work;  he  knew  the  cost  of  the  effort  to  his 
horses  to  start  the  plough  when  its  motion  was  arrested  in 
that  tough  and  clayey  soil.  He  therefore  continued  his 
way  as  though  he  were  alone,  and  it  was  only  at  the  end 
of  the  furrow,  when  he  had  turned  his  team  and  adjusted 
his  instrument  to  continue  the  work,  that  he  showed  a 
willingness  to  enter  into  conversation  while  his  horses 
recovered  their  wind. 

"Well,"  he  said,  in  a  tone  that  was  almost  familiar, 
"have  you  had  good  sport,  Monsieur  Michel?  " 

The  youth,  without  replying,  took  the  game  bag  from 
his  shoulder,  and  dropped  it  at  the  peasant's  feet.  The 
latter,  seeing  through  the  thick  netting  the  yellowish, 
silky  fur  of  a  hare,  exclaimed:  — 

"Ho,  ho!  pretty  good  for  your  first  attempt,  Monsieur 
Michel." 

So  saying,  he  took  the  animal  from  the  bag,  and  exam- 
ined it  knowingly,  pressing  its  belly  as  if  he  were  not  very 
sure  of  the  precautions  so  inexperienced  a  sportsman  as 
Monsieur  Michel  might  have  taken. 

"Ha!  sapredienne  ! "  he  cried;  "the  fellow  is  worth 
three  francs  and  a  half,  if  he  is  a  farthing.     You  made  a 


MONSIEUE   MICHEL.  Cl 

fine  shot  there,  Monsieur  Michel;  do  you  know  it?  You 
must  have  found  out  by  this  time  that  it  is  more  amusing 
to  be  out  with  a  gun  than  reading  a  book,  as  you  are 
always  doing." 

"~No,  upon  my  word,  Courtin,  I  prefer  my  books  to  your 
gun,"  said  the  youth. 

"Well,  perhaps  you  are  right,"  replied  Courtin,  whose 
face  expressed  some  slight  disappointment.  "  If  your  late 
father  had  thought  as  you  do  it  might  have  been  better  for 
him,  too.  But  all  the  same,  if  I  had  means  and  were  not 
a  poor  devil  obliged  to  work  for  a  living  twelve  hours  out 
of  the  twenty-four,  I  would  spend  more  than  my  nights  in 
hunting.  " 

"Do  you  still  hunt  at  night,  Courtin?  " 

"Yes,  Monsieur  Michel,  now  and  then,  for  amusement." 

"The  gendarmes  will  catch  you  some  night." 

"Pooh!  they  're  do-nothings,  those  fellows;  they  don't 
get  up  early  enough  in  the  morning  to  catch  me."  Then, 
allowing  his  face  to  express  all  its  natural  cunning,  he 
added,  "I  know  a  thing  more  than  they,  Monsieur  Michel; 
there  are  not  two  Courtins  in  this  part  of  the  country. 
The  only  way  to  prevent  me  from  poaching  is  to  make  me 
a  game-keeper  like  Jean  Oullier." 

Monsieur  Michel  made  no  reply  to  this  indirect  proposal, 
and  as  he  was  totally  ignorant  of  who  Jean  Oullier  might 
be,  he  did  not  notice  the  last  part  of  the  sentence  any  more 
than  the  beginning  of  it. 

"Here  is  your  gun,  Courtin,"  he  said,  holding  out  the 
weapon.  "  Thank  you  for  your  idea  of  lending  it  to  me  ; 
you  meant  well,  and  it  is  n't  your  fault  if  I  don't  find  as 
much  amusement  in  hunting  as  other  people  do." 

"You  must  try  again,  Monsieur  Michel,  and  get  a  lik- 
ing for  it  ;  the  best  dogs  are  those  that  show  points  last. 
I  've  heard  men  who  will  eat  thirty  dozen  oysters  at  a  sit- 
ting say  they  could  n't  even  bear  to  look  at  them  till  they 
were  past  twenty.  Leave  the  château  with  a  book,  as  you 
did  this  morning;  Madame  la  baronne  won't  suspect  any- 


62  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

tiling.  You  '11  find  me  at  work  about  here,  and  my  gun  is 
always  at  your  service.  Besides,  if  I  am  not  too  busy,  I  '11 
beat  the  bushes  for  you.  Meantime  I  '11  put  the  tool  in 
the  rack." 

Courtin's  "rack"  was  merely  the  hedge  which  divided 
his  field  from  his  neighbors.  He  slipped  the  gun  into  it 
and  drew  the  twigs  and  briers  together,  so  as  to  hide  the 
place  from  a  passing  eye,  and  also  to  keep  his  piece  from 
rain  and  moisture,  —  two  things,  however,  to  which  a  true 
poacher  pays  little  attention,  so  long  as  he  still  has  candle- 
ends  and  a  bit  of  linen. 

"Courtin,"  said  Monsieur  Michel,  endeavoring  to  assume 
a  tone  of  indifference,  "  did  you  know  that  the  Marquis  de 
Souday  was  married?  " 

"No,  that  I  did  n't,"  said  the  peasant. 

"And  has  two  daughters?  "  continued  Michel. 

Courtin,  who  was  still  finishing  his  work  of  concealment 
by  twisting  a  few  rebellious  branches,  raised  his  head 
quickly  and  looked  at  the  young  man  with  such  fixedness 
that  although  the  latter  had  only  asked  his  question  out  of 
vague  curiosity  he  blushed  to  the  very  whites  of  his  eyes. 

"Have  you  met  the  she-wolves?"  asked  Courtin.  "I 
thought  I  heard  that  old  Chouan's  horn." 

"Whom  do  you  call  the  she-wolves?  "  said  Michel. 

"I  call  those  bastard  girls  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday  the 
she-wolves,"  replied  Courtin. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  you  call  those  two  young  girls  by 
such  a  name?  " 

"Damn  it!  that 's  what  they  're  called  in  all  the  country 
round.  But  you  've  just  come  from  Paris,  and  so  you  don't 
know.     Where  did  you  meet  the  sluts?  " 

The  coarseness  with  which  Courtin  spoke  of  the  young 
ladies  frightened  the  timid  youth  so  much  that,  without 
exactly  knowing  why,  he  lied. 

"I  have  not  met  them,"  he  said. 

By  the  tone  of  his  answer  Courtin  doubted  his  words. 

"More's  the   pity  for  you,"  he  answered.     "They  are 


MONSIEUR   MICHEL.  63 

pretty  slips  of  girls,  good  to  see  and  pleasant  to  hug." 
Then,  looking  at  Michel  and  blinking  as  usual,  he  added, 
"They  say  those  girls  are  a  little  too  fond  of  fun;  but 
that 's  the  kind  a  jolly  fellow  wants,  does  n't  he,  Monsieur 
Michel?" 

Without  understanding  the  cause  of  the  sensation, 
Michel  felt  his  heart  more  and  more  oppressed  as  the 
brutal  peasant  spoke  with  insulting  approval  of  the  two 
charming  amazons  he  had  just  left  under  a  strong  impres- 
sion of  gratitude  and  admiration.  His  annoyance  was 
reflected  in  his  face. 

Courtin  no  longer  doubted  that  Michel  had  met  the  she- 
wolves,  as  he  called  them,  and  the  youth's  denial  made  the 
man's  suspicions  as  to  what  the  truth  might  be  go  far 
beyond  reality.  He  was  certain  that  the  marquis  had 
been  within  an  hour  or  two  close  to  La  Logerie,  and  it 
seemed  quite  probable  that  Monsieur  Michel  should  have 
seen  Bertha  and  Mary,  who  almost  always  accompanied 
their  father  when  he  hunted.  Perhaps  the  young  man 
might  have  clone  more  than  see  them,  perhaps  he  had 
spoken  with  them  ;  and,  thanks  to  the  estimation  in  which 
the  sisters  were  held,  a  conversation  with  the  Demoiselles 
de  Souday  would  only  mean  the  beginning  of  an  intrigue. 

Going  from  one  deduction  to  another,  Courtin,  who  was 
logical  in  mind,  concluded  that  his  young  master  had 
reached  that  point.  We  say  "his  young  master,"  because 
Courtin  tilled  a  farm  which  belonged  to  Monsieur  Michel. 
The  work  of  a  farmer,  however,  did  not  please  him;  what 
he  coveted  was  the  place  of  keeper  or  bailiff  to  the  mother 
and  son.  For  this  reason  it  was  that  the  artful  peasant 
tried  by  every  possible  means  to  establish  a  strong  relation 
of  some  kind  between  himself  and  the  young  man. 

He  had  evidently  just  failed  of  his  object  in  persuading 
Michel  to  disobey  his  mother  in  the  matter  of  hunting. 
To  share  the  secrets  of  a  love  affair  now  struck  him  as  a 
part  very  likely  to  serve  his  interests  and  his  low  ambi- 
tions.    The  moment  he  saw  the  cloud  on  Monsieur  Michel's 


64  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

brow  he  felt  he  had  made  a  mistake  in  echoing  the  current 
calumnies,  and  he  looked  about  him  to  recover  his  ground. 

"However,"  he  said,  with  well-assumed  kindliness, 
"there  are  always  plenty  of  people  to  find  more  fault, 
especially  in  the  matter  of  girls,  than  there  is  any  occasion 
for.     Mademoiselle  Bertha  and  Mademoiselle  Mary  —  " 

"Mary  and  Berth  a!  Are  those  their  names?"  asked 
the  young  man,  eagerly. 

"Mary  and  Bertha,  yes.  Mademoiselle  Bertha  is  the 
dark  one,  and  Mademoiselle  Mary  the  fair  one." 

He  looked  at  Monsieur  Michel  with  all  the  acuteness  of 
which  his  eyes  were  capable,  and  he  thought  the  young 
man  slightly  blushed  as  he  named  the  fair  one. 

"Well,  as  I  was  saying,"  resumed  the  persistent  peasant, 
"Mademoiselle  Mary  and  Mademoiselle  Bertha  are  both 
fond  of  hunting  and  hounds  and  horses  ;  but  that  does  n't 
prevent  them  from  being  very  good  girls.  Why,  the  late 
vicar  of  Benaste,  who  was  a  fine  sportsman,  did  n't  say 
mass  any  the  worse  because  his  dog  was  in  the  vestry  and 
his  gun  behind  the  altar." 

"The  fact  is,"  said  Monsieur  Michel,  forgetting  that  he 
gave  the  lie  to  his  own  words,  — "the  fact  is,  they  both 
look  sweet  and  good,  particularly  Mademoiselle  Mary." 

"They  are  sweet  and  good,  Monsieur  Michel.  Last 
year,  during  that  damp,  hot  weather,  when  the  fever  came 
up  from  the  marshes  and  so  many  poor  devils  died  of  it, 
who  do  you  think  nursed  the  sick  without  shirking,  when 
even  some  of  the  doctors  and  the  veterinaries  deserted 
their  posts?  Why,  the  she-wolves,  as  they  call  them. 
They  did  n't  do  their  charity  in  church,  no  !  They  went 
to  the  sick  people's  houses;  they  sowed  alms  and  reaped 
blessings.  Though  the  rich  hate  them,  and  the  nobles  are 
jealous  of  them,  I  make  bold  to  say  that  the  poor  folk  are 
on  their  side." 

"  Why  should  any  one  think  ill  of  them?  "  asked  Michel. 

"Who  knows?  Nobody  gives  any  real  reason.  Men, 
don't  you  see,  Monsieur  Michel,  are  like  birds.     When  one 


MONSIEUR   MICHEL.  65 

is  sick  and  in  the  clumps  all  the  others  come  about  him  and 
pluck  out  his  feathers.  "What  is  really  true  in  all  this  is 
that  people  of  their  own  rank  fling  mud  and  stones  at  those 
poor  youug  ladies.  For  instance,  there  's  your  mamma, 
who  is  so  good  and  kind,  — isn't  she,  Monsieur  Michel'/ 
Well,  if  you  were  to  ask  her  she  would  tell  you,  like  all  the 
rest  of  the  world,  '  They  are  bad  girls.'  " 

But,  in  spite  of  this  change  of  front  on  Courtin's  part, 
Monsieur  Michel  did  not  seem  disposed  to  enter  into  the 
subject  farther.  As  for  Courtin  himself,  he  thought  enough 
had  been  said  to  pave  the  way  for  future  confidences.  As 
Monsieur  Michel  seemed  ready  to  leave  him,  he  started 
his  horses  and  accompanied  him  to  the  end  of  the  field. 
He  noticed,  as  they  went  along,  that  the  young  man's  eyes 
were  often  turned  on  the  sombre  masses  of  the  Machecoul 
forest. 


VOL.  I. — 5 


66  THE   LAST    VENDÉE, 


VIII. 

THE  BARONNE  DE  LA  LOGERIE. 

Courtin  was  respectfully  lowering  for  his  young  master 
the  bars  which  divided  his  field  from  the  road  when  a 
woman's  voice,  calling  Michel,  was  heard  beyond  the 
hedge.  The  young  man  stopped  short  and  trembled  at  the 
sound. 

At  the  same  moment  the  owner  of  the  voice  appeared  on 
the  other  side  of  the  hedge  fence  which  separated  Courtin's 
field  from  that  of  his  neighbor.  This  person,  this  lady, 
may  have  been  forty  to  forty-five  years  of  age.  We  must 
try  to  explain  her  to  the  reader. 

Her  face  was  insignificant,  and  without  other  character 
than  an  air  of  haughtiness  which  contrasted  with  her 
otherwise  common  appearance.  She  was  short  and  stout; 
she  wore  a  silk  dress  much  too  handsome  for  the  fields, 
and  a  gray  cambric  hat,  the  floating  ends  of  which  fell 
upon  her  forehead  and  neck.  The  rest  of  her  apparel  was 
so  choice  that  she  might  have  been  paying  a  visit  in  the 
Chaussée-d'Àntin  or  the  faubourg  Saint-Honore.  This 
was,  apparently,  the  person  of  whose  reproaches  the  young 
man  stood  so  much  in  awe. 

"What!"  she  exclaimed,  "you  here,  Michel?  Eeally, 
my  son,  you  are  very  inconsiderate,  and  you  show  very 
little  regard  for  your  mother.  The  bell  has  been  ringing 
more  than  an  hour  to  call  you  in  to  dinner.  You  know 
how  I  dislike  to  be  kept  waiting,  and  how  particular  I  am 
that  our  meals  should  be  regular;  and  here  I  find  you  tran- 
quilly talking  to  a  peasant." 


THE  BARONNE  DE  LA  LOGEKIE.  67 

Michel  began  to  stammer  an  excuse  ;  but,  almost  at  the 
same  instant  his  mother's  eye  beheld  what  Gourtin  had 
either  not  noticed  or  had  not  chosen  to  remark  upon,  — 
namely,  that  the  young  man's  head  was  bound  up  with  a 
handkerchief,  and  that  the  handkerchief  had  blood-stains 
upon  it,  which  his  straw  hat,  although  its  brim  was  wide, 
did  not  effectually  conceal. 

"Good  God!"  she  cried,  raising  a  voice,  which  in  its 
ordinary  key  was  much  too  high.  "You  are  wounded! 
What  has  happened  to  you?  Speak,  unfortunate  boy! 
don't  you  see  that  I  am  dying  of  anxiety?" 

Climbing  the  fence  with  an  impatience,  and,  above  all, 
an  agility  which  could  scarcely  have  been  expected  of  one 
of  her  age  and  corpulence,  the  mother  of  the  youth  came 
up  to  him,  and  before  he  could  prevent  her,  took  the  hat 
and  the  handkerchief  from  his  head. 

The  wound,  thus  disturbed  by  the  tearing  away  of  the 
bandage,  began  to  bleed  again.  Monsieur  Michel,  as 
Courtin  called  him,  unprepared  for  the  explanation  he  so 
much  dreaded,  and  which  was  now  forced  upon  him  sud- 
denly, stood  silent  and  confused,  unable  to  reply.  Courtin 
came  to  his  aid.  The  wily  peasant  saw  at  once  that  the 
youth,  fearing  to  tell  his  mother  that  he  had  disobeyed  her, 
was  also  unwilling  to  tell  a  lie.  As  he  himself  had  no 
scruples  on  that  point,  he  resolutely  burdened  his  con- 
science with  the  sin  that,  in  his  innocence,  Michel  dared 
not  commit. 

"Oh!  Madame  la  baronne  need  not  be  anxious  ;  it  is 
nothing,  absolutely  nothing." 

"  But  I  wish  to  know  how  it  happened.  Answer  for  him 
yourself,  Courtin,  if  monsieur  is  determined  to  keep 
silence." 

The  young  man  was  still  dumb. 

"It  is  easily  told,  Madame  la  baronne,"  replied  Courtin. 
"I  had  a  bundle  of  branches  I  took  off  last  autumn;  it  was 
so  heavy  I  could  n't  lift  it  on  to  my  shoulders  alone,  and 
Monsieur  Michel  had  the  kindness  to  help  me.     One  branch 


68  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

of  the  cursed  thing  got  loose  and  scratched  him  on  the 
forehead,  as  you  see." 

"Scratch!  that's  more  than  a  scratch!  you  came  near 
putting  his  eye  out.  Another  time,  Maître  Courtin,  get 
your  equals  to  load  your  fagots;  do  you  hear  me?  It  was  a 
very  improper  proceeding  in  itself,  besides  nearly  maiming 
my  son." 

Courtin  humbly  bowed  his  head,  as  if  recognizing  the 
enormity  of  his  offence  ;  but  that  did  not  prevent  him  from 
giving  the  hare,  which  lay  near  the  game-bag,  a  vigorous 
kick,  which  threw  it  out  of  sight  under  the  hedge. 

"Come,  Monsieur  Michel,"  said  the  baroness,  who  seemed 
appeased  by  the  peasant's  submissiveness,  "you  must  go 
and  see  the  doctor  about  that  wound."  Then  turning  back, 
after  she  had  taken  a  few  steps,  she  added,  "By  the  bye, 
Courtin,  you  have  not  paid  your  mid-summer  rent,  and  yet 
your  lease  expires  at  Easter.  Remember  that.  I  am 
determined  not  to  keep  tenants  who  are  not  regular  in 
their  payments." 

Courtin's  expression  of  countenance  was  more  humble 
than  ever;  but  it  changed  when  the  mother,  getting  over 
the  fence  with  less  agility  than  before,  left  the  son  free  to 
whisper  to  Courtin  :  — 

"I'll  be  here  to-morrow." 

In  spite  of  the  threat  just  made  to  him,  Courtin  seized 
the  handle  of  his  plough  with  more  gayety  than  usually 
belonged  to  his  disposition,  and  started  upon  a  new  furrow, 
while  his  betters  returned  to  the  château.  For  the  rest 
of  the  day's  work  he  enlivened  his  horses  by  singing  to 
them  "La  Parisienne,"  a  patriotic  song  then  much  in 
vogue. 

While  Courtin  sings  the  above-mentioned  hymn,  much 
to  the  satisfaction  of  his  steeds,  let  us  say  a  few  words  as 
to  the  Michel  family.  You  have  seen  the  son,  my  dear 
readers,  and  you  have  seen  the  mother.  The  mother  was 
the  widow  of  one  of  those  government  purveyors  who  had 
made,   at  the  cost  of  the   State,   rapid   and   considerable 


THE    BARONNE    DE   LA   LOGERIE.  69 

fortunes  out  of  the  Imperial  armies;  the  soldiers  nick- 
named them  "Rice-bread-salt." 

The  family  name  of  this  purveyor  was  Michel.  He 
came  originally  from  the  department  of  Mayenne,  and 
was  the  son  of  a  peasant  and  the  nephew  of  a  village 
schoolmaster.  The  latter,  by  adding  a  few  notions  of 
arithmetic  to  the  reading  and  writing  he  imparted  to  him 
gratuitously,  did  actually  decide  his  nephew's  future 
career. 

Taken  by  the  first  draft,  in  1794,  Michel  the  peasant 
joined  the  22d  brigade  with  very  little  enthusiasm.  This 
man,  who  later  became  a  distinguished  accountant,  had 
already  calculated  his  chances  of  being  killed  and  of 
becoming  a  general.  The  result  of  his  calculation  did  not 
altogether  satisfy  him,  and  he  therefore,  with  much  adroit- 
ness, made  the  most  of  his  fine  handwriting  (also  due  to 
his  uncle,  the  schoolmaster)  to  get  a  place  as  clerk  in  the 
quartermaster's  department.  He  felt  as  much  satisfaction 
in  obtaining  that  position  as  another  man  would  have  felt 
at  promotion. 

It  was  there,  at  the  base  of  supplies,  that  Michel,  the 
father,  went  through  the  campaigns  of  1792  and  1793. 
Toward  the  middle  of  the  latter  year  General  Rossignol, 
who  was  sent  to  either  pacify  or  exterminate  La  Vendée, 
having  accidentally  come  across  Michel,  the  clerk,  in  one 
of  the  offices,  and  hearing  from  him  that  he  was  a  native 
of  those  regions  and  that  all  his  friends  were  in  the  Ven- 
déan  ranks,  bethought  himself  of  utilizing  this  providential 
circumstance.  He  gave  Michel  an  indefinite  furlough,  and 
sent  him  home  with  no  other  instructions  than  to  take  ser- 
vice among  the  Chouans  and  do  for  him,  from  time  to 
time,  what  Monsieur  de  Maurepas  did  for  His  Majesty 
Louis  XV.,  — that  is  to  say,  give  him  the  news  of  the, 
day.  Michel,  who  found  great  pecuniary  advantages  in 
this  commission,  fulfilled  it  with  scrupulous  fidelity,  not 
only  for  General  Rossignol  but  for  all  his  successors. 

This  anecdotical  correspondence  was  at  its  height,  when 


70  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

General  Travot  was  sent  to  La  Vendee.  We  all  know  the 
result  of  liis  operations;  they  were  the  subject  of  the 
opening  chapters  of  this  book.  Here  is  a  recapitulation  of 
them:  the  Vendéan  army  defeated,  Jolly  killed,  Couëtu 
enticed  into  an  ambush  and  taken  by  a  traitor  whose  name 
has  never  been  known,  Charette  made  prisoner  in  the 
woods  of  La  Chabotière  and  shot  in  the  market-place  of 
Nantes. 

What  part  did  Michel  play  in  the  successive  vicissitudes 
of  that  terrible  drama?  We  may  find  an  answer  to  that 
question  later;  it  is  certain  that  soon  after  the  last  bloody 
episodes  Michel,  still  recommended  for  his  beautiful  hand- 
writing and  his  infallible  arithmetic,  entered,  as  clerk,  the 
office  of  a  very  celebrated  army  contractor. 

There  he  made  rapid  progress,  for  in  1805  we  find  him 
contracting  on  his  own  account  to  supply  forage  to  the 
army  of  Germany.  In  1806  his  shoes  and  gaiters  took  an 
active  part  in  the  heroic  campaign  of  Prussia.  In  1809 
he  obtained  the  entire  victualling  of  the  army  that  entered 
Spain.  In  1810  he  married  the  only  daughter  of  another 
contractor  and  doubled  his  fortune  with  her  dowry. 

Besides  all  this,  he  changed  his  name,  —  or  rather 
lengthened  it,  —  which  was,  for  those  whose  names  were 
too  short,  the  great  ambition  of  that  period.  This  is  how 
the  coveted  addition  was  managed. 

The  father  of  Monsieur  Michel's  wife  was  named 
Baptiste  Durand.  He  came  from  the  little  village  of  La 
Logerie,  and  to  distinguish  him  from  another  Durand  who 
often  crossed  his  path,  he  called  himself  Durand  de  la 
Logerie.  At  any  rate,  that  was  the  pretext  he  gave.  His 
daughter  was  educated  at  one  of  the  best  schools  in  Paris, 
where  she  was  registered  on  her  arrival  as  Stéphanie 
Durand  de  la  Logerie.  Once  married  to  this  daughter  of 
his  brother  contractor,  Monsieur  Michel  thought  that  his 
name  would  look  better  if  his  wife's  name  were  added  to 
it.    He  accordingly  became  Monsieur  Michel  de  la  Logerie. 

Finally,  at  the  Restoration,  a  title  of  the  Holy  Roman 


THF  BARONNE  DE  LA  LOGERIE.  71 

Empire,  bought  for  cash,  enabled  hiin  to  call  himself  the 
Baron  Michel  de  la  Logerie,  and  to  take  his  place,  once 
for  all,  in  the  financial  and  territorial  aristocracy  of  the 
day. 

A  few  years  after  the  return  of  the  Bourbons,  —  that  is 
to  say,  about  1819  or  1820,  — Baron  Michel  de  la  Li 
lost  his  father-in-law,  Monsieur  Durand  de  la  Logerie. 
The  latter  left  to  his  daughter,  and  consequently  to  her 
husband,  his  estate  at  La  Logerie,  standing,  as  the  details 
given  in  preceding  chapters  will  Lave  told  the  reader, 
about  fifteen  miles  from  the  forest  of  Machecoul.  The 
Baron  Michel  de  la  Logerie,  like  the  good  landlord  and 
seigneur  that  he  was,  went  to  take  possession  of  his  estate 
and  show  himself  to  his  vassals.  He  was  a  man  of  sense; 
he  wanted  to  get  into  the  Chamber.  He  could  do  that  only 
by  election,  and  his  election  depended  on  the  popularity  he 
might  gain  in  the  department  of  the  Lower  Loire. 

He  was  born  a  peasant;  he  had  lived  twenty -five  years 
of  his  life  among  peasants  (barring  the  two  or  three  years 
he  was  in  the  quartermaster's  office),  and  he  knew  exactly 
how  to  deal  with  peasants.  In  the  first  place,  he  had  to 
make  them  forgive  his  prosperity.  He  made  himself  what 
is  called  "the  good  prince,"  found  a  few  old  comrades  of 
the  Vendéan  days,  shook  hands  with  them,  spoke  with 
tears  in  his  eyes  of  the  deaths  of  poor  Monsieur  Jolly  and 
dear  Monsieur  Couetu  and  the  worthy  Monsieur  Charette. 
He  informed  himself  about  the  needs  of  the  village,  which 
he  had  never  before  visited,  had  a  bridge  built  to  open 
important  communication  between  the  department  of  the 
Lower  Loire  and  that  of  La  Vendée,  repaired  three  county 
roads  and  rebuilt  a  church,  endowed  an  orphan  asylum  and 
a  home  for  old  men,  received  so  many  benedictions,  and 
found  such  pleasure  in  playing  this  patriarchal  part  that 
he  expressed  the  intention  of  living  only  six  months  of 
the  year  in  Paris  and  the  other  six  at  his  Château  de  la 
Logerie. 

Yielding,  however,  to  the  entreaties  of  his  wife,  who, 


72  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

being  unable  to  understand  the  violent  passion  for  country 
life  which  seemed  to  have  come  over  him,  wrote  letter 
after  letter  from  Paris  to  hasten  his  return,  he  yielded,  we 
say,  to  her  so  far  as  to  promise  to  return  on  the  following 
Monday.  Sunday  was  to  be  devoted  to  a  grand  battue  of 
wolves  in  the  woods  of  La  Pauvrière  and  the  forest  of 
Grand'Lande,  which  were  infested  by  those  beasts.  It 
was,  in  fact,  another  philanthropic  effort  on  the  part  of 
Baron  Michel  de  la  Logerie. 

At  the  battue  Baron  Michel  still  continued  to  play  his 
part  of  a  rich,  good  fellow.  He  provided  refreshments  for 
all,  ordered  two  barrels  of  wine  to  be  taken  on  handcarts 
after  the  trail,  that  every  one  might  drink  who  would;  he 
ordered  a  positive  banquet  for  the  whole  party  to  be  ready 
at  an  inn  on  their  return,  refused  the  post  of  honor  at  the 
battue,  expressed  the  wish  to  be  treated  as  the  humblest 
huntsman,  and  his  ill-luck  in  drawing  lots  having  bestowed 
upon  him  the  worst  place  of  all,  bore  his  misfortune  with 
a  good-humor  that  delighted  everybody. 

The  battue  was  splendid.  From  every  covert  the  beasts 
came;  on  all  sides  guns  resounded  with  such  rapidity  that 
the  scene  resembled  a  little  war.  Bodies  of  wolves  and 
boars  were  piled  up  beside  the  handcarts  bearing  the  wine- 
barrels,  not  to  speak  of  contraband  game,  such  as  hares 
and  squirrels,  which  were  killed  in  this  battue,  as  at  other 
battues,  under  the  head  of  vermin,  and  carefully  hidden 
away,  to  be  fetched  during  the  night. 

The  intoxication  of  success  was  such  that  the  hero  of 
the  day  was  forgotten.  It  was  not  until  after  the  last 
beating-up  was  over  that  Baron  Michel  was  missed. 
Inquiries  were  made.  No  one  had  seen  him  since  the 
morning;  in  fact,  not  since  he  had  drawn  the  lot  which 
gave  him  the  worst  place  at  the  extreme  end  of  the  hunt. 
On  making  this  discovery,  it  was  supposed  that  finding  his 
chance  of  amusement  very  slight,  and  being  solicitous  for 
the  entertainment  of  his  guests,  he  had  gone  back  to  the 
little  town  of  Lege,  where  the  feast  was  to  be  given. 


THE    BARONNE   DE   LA   LOGEUIE.  73 

But  when  the  huntsmen  arrived  at  Lege  they  found  that 
the  baron  was  not  there.  Most  of  them  being  tired  and 
hungry  sat  down  to  the  supper  table  without  him;  but  a 
few  —  five  or  six  —  others,  feeling  uneasy,  returned  to  the 
woods  of  La  Pauvrière  with  torches  and  lanterns  and  began 
to  search  for  him. 

At  the  end  of  two  hours'  fruitless  effort,  he  was  found 
dead  in  the  ditch  of  the  second  covert  they  had  drawn. 
He  was  shot  through  the  heart. 

This  death  caused  great  excitement  and  many  rumors. 
The  police  of  Nantes  investigated  it.  The  huntsman 
whose  place  was  directly  below  that  of  the  baron  was 
arrested.  He  declared  that,  although  he  was  distant  only 
one  hundred  and  fifty  steps  from  the  baron,  a  corner  of 
the  wood  concealed  them  from  each  other,  and  he  had  seen 
and  heard  nothing.  It  was  also  proved  that  this  man's 
gun  had  not  been  fired  that  day;  moreover,  from  the  place 
where  he  stood  he  could  only  have  hit  Baron  Michel  on  the 
right,  whereas  the  latter  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  been 
shot  on  the  left. 

The  inquiry,  therefore,  went  no  farther.  The  death  of 
the  ex-contractor  was  attributed  to  accident;  it  was  sup- 
posed that  a  stray  ball  had  struck  him  (as  sometimes  hap- 
pens when  game  is  driven),  without  evil  intention  on  the 
part  of  whoever  fired  it.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  this  explan- 
ation, a  vague  rumor  got  about  of  some  accomplished 
revenge.  It  was  said  —  but  said  in  the  lowest  whisper,  as 
if  each  tuft  of  gorse  still  concealed  the  gun  of  a  Chouan 
—  it  was  said  that  a  former  soldier  of  Jolly  or  Couètu  or 
Charette  had  made  the  unfortunate  purveyor  expiate  the 
betrayal  and  death  of  those  illustrious  leaders;  but  there 
were  too  many  persons  interested  in  the  secret  to  let  it 
ever  be  openly  asserted. 

The  Baronne  Michel  de  la  Logerie  was  left  a  widow, 
with  one  son.  She  was  one  of  those  women  of  negative 
virtues  of  which  the  world  is  full.  Of  vices  she  did  not 
possess  a  spark;  of  passions  she   was  so  far  ignorant  of 


74  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

their  very  name.  Harnessed  at  seventeen  to  tlie  marriage 
plough,  she  had  plodded  along  in  the  conjugal  furrow 
without  swerving  to  the  right  nor  yet  to  the  left,  and  never 
so  much  as  asking  herself  if  there  were  any  other  road. 
The  idea  had  never  crossed  her  mind  that  a  woman  could 
revolt  against  the  goad.  Relieved  of  the  yoke,  she  was 
frightened  by  her  liberty,  and  instinctively  looked  about 
her  for  new  chains.  These  chains  religion  gave  her;  and 
then,  like  all  narrow  minds,  she  took  to  vegetating  in 
false,  exaggerated,  and,  at  the  same  time,  conscientious 
devotion. 

Madame  la  Baronne  Michel  sincerely  believed  herself  a 
saint;  she  went  regularly  to  church,  kept  all  the  fasts, 
and  was  faithful  to  all  the  injunctions  of  the  Church. 
Had  any  one  told  her  that  she  sinned  seven  times  a  day 
she  would  have  been  greatly  astonished.  Yet  nothing  was 
more  true.  It  is  certain  that  if  the  humility  of  Madame 
la  Baronne  de  la  Logerie  had  been  dissected  she  would 
have  been  found  at  every  hour  of  the  day  to  disobey  the 
precepts  of  the  Saviour  of  men  ;  for  (little  ground  as  she 
had  for  it)  her  pride  of  rank  amounted  to  mania.  We 
have  seen  how  the  sly  peasant  Courtin,  who  called  the  son 
Monsieur  Michel,  never  failed  to  give  the  mother  her  title 
of  baroness. 

Naturally,  Madame  de  la  Logerie  held  the  world  and  the 
epoch  in  holy  horror;  she  never  read  a  police  report  in 
her  newspaper  without  accusing  both  (the  world  and  the 
epoch)  of  the  blackest  immorality.  To  hear  her,  one 
would  suppose  the  Iron  age  dated  from  1800.  Her  utmost 
care  was  therefore  directed  to  save  her  son  from  the  con- 
tagion of  the  ideas  of  the  day  by  bringing  him  up  at  a 
distance  from  the  world  and  all  its  dangers.  Never  would 
she  listen  to  the  idea  of  his  entering  any  sort  of  public 
school;  even  those  of  the  Jesuits  were  dangerous  in  her 
eyes,  from  the  readiness  of  the  good  fathers  to  accommo- 
date themselves  to  the  social  obligations  of  the  young  men 
confided  to  their  care.     Though  the  heir  of  all  the  Michels 


THE   BAEONNE   DE   LA   LOGERIE.  75 

received  some  lessons  from  masters,  which,  so  far  as  arts 
and  sciences  go,  were  indispensable  to  the  education  of  a 
young  main  it  was  always  in  presence  of  the  mother  and 
on  a  plan  approved  by  her;  for  she  alone  directed  the 
course  of  ideas  and  instruction,  especially  on  the  moral 
side,  which  were  given  to  her  son. 

A  strong  infusion  of  intelligence,  which  by  great  good 
luck  nature  had  placed  in  the  youth's  brain,  was  needed  to 
bring  him  safe  and  sound  out  of  the  torture  to  which  she 
had  subjected  him  for  over  ten  years.  He  did  come 
through  it,  as  we  have  seen,  though  feeble  and  undecided, 
and  with  nothing  of  the  strength  and  resolution  which 
should  characterize  a  man,  —  the  representative  of  vigor, 
decision,  and  intellect. 


76  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 


IX. 


GAL0N-D  OR   AND    ALLEGRO. 


As  Michel  had  foreseen  and  feared,  his  mother  scolded  him 
vigorously.  She  was  not  duped  by  Courtin's  tale  ;  the 
wound  on  her  son's  forehead  was  by  no  means  a  scratch 
made  by  a  thorn.  Ignorant  of  what  interest  her  son  could 
have  in  concealing  the  matter  from  her,  and  quite  convinced 
that  even  if  she  questioned  him  she  should  not  get  at  the 
truth,  she  contented  herself  by  fixing  lier  eyes  steadily  from 
time  to  time  on  the  mysterious  wound,  and  shaking  her 
head  with  a  sigh  and  a  scowl  of  the  maternal  forehead. 

During  the  whole  dinner  Michel  was  ill  at  ease,  lowering 
his  eyes  and  scarcely  eating;  but  it  must  be  said  that  his 
mother's  incessant  examination  was  not  the  only  thing  that 
troubled  him.  Hovering  between  his  lowered  eyelids  and 
his  mother's  suspecting  eyes  were  two  forms,  two  visions. 
These  visions  were  the  twin  shadows  of  Bertha  and  of 
Mary. 

Michel  thought  of  Bertha  with  some  slight  irritation. 
Who  was  this  Amazon  who  handled  a  gun  like  a  trained 
huntsman,  who  bandaged  wounds  like  a  surgeon,  and  who, 
when  she  found  her  patient  refractory,  twisted  his  wrists 
with  her  white  and  womanly  hands  as  Jean  Oullier  might 
have  done  with  his  hard  and  calloused  ones  ? 

But  on  the  other  hand,  how  charming  was  Mary,  with 
her  fine  blond  hair  and  her  beautiful  blue  eyes  !  how  sweet 
her  voice,  how  persuasive  its  accents  !  With  what  gentleness 
she  had  touched  his  wound,  washed  off  the  blood,  and  bound 
the  bandage  !  Michel  scarcely  regretted  the  wound,  for 
without  it  there  vv'as  no  reason  why  the  young  ladies  should 


galon-d'or  and  allégro.  77 

have  spoken  to  him  or,  indeed,  have  taken  any  notice  of 
him. 

It  was  true  that  his  mother's  displeasure  and  the  doubts 
he  had  raised  in  her  mind  were  really  the  more  serious  mat- 
ter; but  he  persuaded  himself  that  her  anger  would  soon 
pass  off,  whereas  the  thing  that  would  not  pass  was  the  im- 
pression left  on  his  heart  during  the  few  seconds  when  he 
held  Mary's  hand  clasped  closely  in  his  own.  All  hearts 
when  they  begin  to  love  and  yet  are  not  aware  of  it  crave 
solitude  ;  and  for  this  reason  no  sooner  was  dinner  over 
than,  profiting  by  a  moment  when  his  mother  was  discours- 
ing with  a  servant,  he  left  the  room,  not  hearing  or  not 
heeding  the  words  with  which  she  called  after  him. 

And  yet  those  words  were  important.  Madame  de  la 
Logerie  forbade  her  son  to  go  near  the  village  of  Saint- 
Christophe-du-Ligneron,  where,  as  she  had  learned  from  a 
servant,  a  bad  fever  was  raging.  She  at  once  put  the 
château  under  quarantine,  and  forbade  that  any  one  from 
the  infected  village  should  approach  it.  The  order  was 
enforced  immediately  in  the  case  of  a  young  girl  who 
came  to  ask  assistance  of  the  baroness  for  her  father,  just 
attacked  by  the  fever. 

If  Michel's  mind  had  not  been  so  pre-occupied  he  would 
undoubtedly  have  paid  attention  to  his  mother's  words,  for 
the  sick  man  was  his  foster-father,  a  farmer  named  Tinguy, 
and  the  girl  who  had  come  to  ask  help  was  his  foster-sister, 
Kosine,  for  whom  he  had  the  greatest  affection.  But  at 
this  moment  his  thoughts  were  all  rushing  toward  Souday, 
and  more  especially  to  that  charming  creature  who  bore  the 
name  of  Mary. 

He  buried  himself  in  the  remotest  woodland  of  the  park, 
taking  with  him  a  book  as  an  excuse  ;  but  though  he  read 
the  book  attentively  till  he  reached  the  edge  of  the  forest 
he  would  have  been  puzzled  to  tell  you  the  name  of  it  had 
you  asked  him.  Once  hidden  from  his  mother's  eyes  he  sat 
down  on  a  bench  and  reflected. 

What  was  he   reflecting   about  ?     Easy  to  answer.     He 


78  THE   LAST   VENDEE. 

was  thinking  how  he  could  contrive  to  see  Mary  and  her 
sister  again.  Chance  had  thrown  them  together  once,  but 
chance  had  taken  her  time  about  it,  for  he  had  been  over 
six  months  in  the  neighborhood.  If  it  pleased  chance  to 
be  another  six  months  without  giving  the  young  baron  a 
second  meeting  with  his  new  friends  the  time  would  be  too 
long  for  the  present  state  of  his  heart. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  open  communications  with  the 
château  de  Souday  himself  was  hardly  feasible.  There  had 
never  been  any  sympathy  between  the  Marquis  de  Souday, 
an  émigré  of  1790,  and  the  Baron  de  la  Logerie,  a  noble  of 
the  Empire.  Besides,  Jean  Oullier,  in  the  few  words  he 
had  exchanged  with  him,  had  shown  plainly  there  was  no 
disposition  to  make  his  acquaintance. 

But  the  young  girls,  they  who  had  shown  him  such  inter- 
est, masterful  in  Bertha,  gentle  in  Mary,  how  could  he 
reach  the  young  girls  ?  This  indeed  was  difficult,  for 
though  they  hunted  two  or  three  times  a  week,  they  were 
always  in  company  of  their  father  and  Jean  Oullier. 

Michel  resolved  to  read  all  the  novels  in  the  library  of 
the  château,  hoping  to  discover  from  them  some  ingenious 
method  which,  as  he  began  to  fear,  his  own  mind,  limited  to 
its  own  inspirations,  could  never  furnish.  At  this  stage  of 
his  reflections  a  touch  was  laid  upon  his  shoulder  ;  looking 
round  with  a  quiver  he  saw  Courtin  ;  the  farmer's  face  ex- 
pressed a  satisfaction  he  did  not  take  any  pains  to  conceal. 

"Beg  pardon,  excuse  me,  Monsieur  Michel,"  said  the  man  ; 
"  seeing  you  as  still  as  a  milestone,  I  thought  it  was  your 
statue  instead  of  yourself." 

"  Well,  you  see  it  is  I,  Courtin." 

"  And  I  'm  glad  of  it,  Monsieur  Michel  ;  I  was  anxious  to 
hear  what  passed  between  you  and  Madame  la  baronne." 

"  She  scolded  me  a  little." 

"  Oh  !  I  was  sure  of  that.  Did  you  tell  her  anything 
about  the  hare  ?  " 

"  I  took  good  care  not  to." 

"  Or  the  wolves  ?  " 


galon-d'or  and  allégro.  79 

"  What  wolves  ?  "  asked  the  young  man  not  ill-pleased 
to  bring  the  conversation  to  this  point. 

"  The  she-wolves  of  Machecoul  ;  I  told  you  that  was  the 
nickname  for  the  young  ladies  at  Souday." 

"  Of  course  I  did  not  tell  her  ;  you  know  that,  Courtin.  I 
don't  think  the  Souday  hounds  and  those  of  La  Logerie  can 
hunt  together." 

"In  any  case,"  replied  Courtin,  in  the  sneering  tone 
which,  in  spite  of  his  best  efforts,  he  was  sometimes  unable 
to  conceal,  "  if  your  hounds  won't  hunt  with  the  Souday 
pack  you,  as  it  seems,  can  hunt  with  theirs." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?  " 

"  Look  !  "  pulling  toward  him  and,  as  it  were,  bringing 
on  the  stage  two  coupled  hounds  which  he  held  in  a  leash. 

"  What  are  they  ?  "  asked  the  young  baron. 

"  They  ?  Why,  Galon-d'Or  and  Allegro,  to  be  sure." 

"  I  don't  know  who  Galon-d'Or  and  Allégro  are." 

"  The  dogs  of  that  brigand  Jean  Oullier." 

"  Why  did  you  take  his  dogs  ?  " 

"  I  did  n't  take  them  ;  I  simply  put  them  in  the  pound," 

"  By  what  right  ?  " 

"By  two  rights  :  land-owner's  rights,  and  mayor's  rights." 

Courtin  was  mayor  of  the  village  of  La  Logerie,  which 
contained  about  a  score  of  houses,  and  he  was  very  proud  of 
the  title. 

"  Please  explain  those  rights,  Courtin." 

"  Well,  in  the  first  place,  Monsieur  Michel,  I  confiscate 
them  as  mayor  because  they  hunt  at  an  illegal  season." 

"  I  did  not  know  there  was  an  illegal  season  for  hunting 
wolves  ;  besides  as  Monsieur  de  Souday  is  Master  of 
wolves  —  " 

"  That 's  very  true  ;  as  Master  of  wolves  he  can  hunt 
wolves  in  the  forest  of  Machecoul,  but  not  on  the  plain. 
Besides,  as  you  know  yourself,"  continued  Courtin,  with  a 
sneering  smile,  "  as  you  saw  yourself,  he  was  not  hunting  a 
wolf  at  all,  but  a  hare — and  moreover,  that  hare  was  shot 
by  one  of  his  own  cubs." 


80  THE   LAST   VEKDÉE. 

The  young  man  was  on  the  point  of  telling  Courtin  that 
the  word  cub  applied  to  the  Demoiselles  de  Souday  was 
offensive  to  him,  and  of  requesting  him  not  to  use  it  again, 
but  he  dared  not  make  so  firm  a  remonstrance. 

"  It  was  Mademoiselle  Bertha  who  killed  it,  Courtin,"  he 
said,  "  but  I  had  previously  wounded  it  ;  so  I  am  the  guilty 
person." 

"  Pshaw  !  what  do  you  mean  by  that  ?  Would  you  have 
fired  on  the  hare  if  the  hounds  were  not  already  coursing 
it  ?  No,  of  course  not.  It  is  the  fault  of  the  dogs  that  you 
fired,  and  that  Mademoiselle  Bertha  killed  the  game  ;  and  it 
is  therefore  the  dogs  that  I  punish  as  mayor  for  pursuing 
hares  under  pretence  of  hunting  wolves.  But  that 's  not 
all  ;  after  punishing  them  as  mayor  I  punish  them  as  —  pro- 
prietor. Do  you  suppose  I  gave  Monsieur  le  marquis'  dogs 
the  right  to  hunt  over  my  land  ?  " 

"  Your  land,  Courtin  !  "  said  Michel,  laughing  ;  "  you  are  a 
trifle  mistaken  ;  it  was  over  my  land,  or  rather  my  mother's, 
that  they  were  trespassing." 

"That's  no  matter,  Monsieur  le  baron,  inasmuch  as  I 
farm  it.  You  must  remember  that  we  are  no  longer  in  1789, 
when  the  great  lords  had  a  right  to  ride  with  their  hounds 
over  the  harvests  of  the  poor  peasants  and  trample  every- 
thing down  without  paying  for  it  ;  no,  no,  no,  indeed  !  this 
is  the  year  1832,  Monsieur  Michel  ;  every  man  is  master  of 
the  soil  he  lives  on,  and  game  belongs  to  him  who  supports 
it.  The  hare  coursed  by  the  dogs  of  the  marquis  is  my  hare, 
for  it  has  fed  on  the  wheat  in  the  fields  I  hire  from  Madame 
la  baronne,  and  it  is  I  alone  who  have  the  right  to  eat  that 
hare  which  you  wounded  and  the  she-wolf  killed." 

Michel  made  an  impatient  movement  which  Courtin  de- 
tected out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye  ;  but  the  youth  did  not 
dare  to  further  express  his  displeasure. 

"  There  is  one  thing  that  surprises  me,"  he  said,  "  and 
that  is  why  those  dogs  that  are  straining  so  at  the  leash 
ever  allowed  you  to  catch  them." 

"  Oh  !  "  said  Courtin,  '•'  that  did  not  give  me  any  trouble. 


galon-d'or  and  allégro.  81 

After  I  left  you  and  Madame  la  baronne  at  the  bars,  I  came 
back  and  found  these  gentlemen  at  dinner." 

"  At  dinner  ?  " 

"  Yes,  in  the  hedge,  where  I  left  the  hare  ;  they  found 
it  and  they  were  dining.  It  seems  they  are  not  properly 
fed  at  the  château  de  Souday.  Just  see  the  state  my  hare 
is  in." 

So  saying,  Courtin  took  from  the  huge  pocket  of  his 
jacket  the  hindquarters  of  the  hare,  which  formed  the  in- 
criminating proof  of  the  misdemeanor  ;  the  head  and  shoul- 
ders were  eaten  off. 

"And  to  think,"  said  Courtin,  "that  they  did  it  in  just 
that  minute  of  time  while  I  was  with  you  and  madame  \ 
Ah  !  you  scamps,  you  '11  have  to  help  me  kill  a  good  many 
to  make  me  forget  that." 

"Courtin,  let  me  tell  you  something,"  said  the  young 
baron. 

"  Tell  away,  don't  be  backward,  Monsieur  Michel." 

"  It  is  that  as  you  are  a  mayor  you  ought  to  respect  the 
laws." 

"  Laws  !  I  wear  them  on  my  heart.  Liberty  !  Public 
order  !  Don't  you  know  those  words  are  posted  over  the 
door  of  the  mayor's  office,  Monsieur  Michel  ?  " 

"  Well,  so  much  the  more  reason  why  I  should  tell  you 
that  what  you  are  doing  is  not  legal,  and  threatens  liberty 
and  public  order." 

"  What  !  "  exclaimed  Courtin.  "  Shall  the  hounds  of 
those  she-wolves  hunt  over  my  land  at  a  prohibited  season, 
and  I  not  be  allowed  to  put  them  in  the  pound  ?  " 

"  They  were  not  disturbing  public  order,  Courtin  ;  they 
were  simply  injuring  private  interests  ;  you  have  the  right 
to  lodge  a  complaint  against  them,  but  not  to  put  them 
in  the  pound." 

"  Oh  !  that 's  too  round-about  a  way  ;  if  hounds  are  to  be 
allowed  to  run  where  they  like  and  we  can  only  lodge  com- 
plaints against  them,  then  it  is  n't  men  who  have  liberty, 
but  dogs." 

VOL.    I.  —  6 


82  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Courtin,"  said  the  youth,  with,  a  touch  of  the  assump- 
tion observable  in  men  who  get  a  smattering  of  the  Code, 
"  you  make  the  mistake  that  a  great  many  persons  make  ; 
you  confound  liberty  with  independence  ;  independence  is 
the  liberty  of  men  who  are  not  free,  my  friend." 

"  Then  what  is  liberty,  Monsieur  Michel  ?  " 

"Liberty,  my  dear  Courtin,  is  the  sacrifice  that  each 
man  makes  of  his  personal  independence  for  the  good  of 
all.  It  is  from  the  general  fund  of  independence  that 
each  man  draws  his  liberty  ;  we  are  free,  Courtin,  but  not 
independent." 

"  Oh,  as  for  me,"  said  Courtin,  "  I  don't  know  anything 
about  all  that.  I  am  a  mayor  and  the  holder  of  land  ;  and 
I  have  captured  the  best  hounds  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday's 
pack,  Galon-d'Or  and  Allégro,  and  I  shall  not  give  them  up. 
Let  him  come  after  them,  and  when  he  does  I  shall  ask  him 
what  he  has  been  doing  in  certain  meetings  at  Torfou  and 
Montaigu." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  know  what  I  mean." 

"Yes,  but  I  don't." 

"  There  is  no  reason  why  you  should  know  ;  you  are  not 
a  mayor." 

"No,  but  I  am  an  inhabitant  of  the  place  and  I  have  an 
interest  in  knowing  what  happens." 

"  As  for  that,  it  is  easy  to  see  what  is  happening  ;  these 
people  are  conspiring  again." 

"What  people  ?  " 

"  Why,  the  nobles  !  the  —  but  I  'd  better  hold  my  tongue, 
though  you  are  not  exactly  their  style  of  nobility,  you." 

Michel  reddened  to  the  whites  of  his  eyes. 

"  You  say  the  nobles  are  conspiring,  Courtin  ?  " 

"  If  not,  why  do  they  have  these  secret  meetings  at  night. 
If  they  meet  in  the  day-time,  the  lazy  fellows,  to  eat  and 
drink,  that 's  all  well  enough  ;  the  law  allows  it  and  there  's 
nothing  to  be  said.  But  when  they  meet  at  night  it  is 
for  no  good  end,  you  may  be  sure.     In  any  case  they  had 


galon-d'or  and  allégko.  83 

better  look  out  ;  I've  got  my  eye  upon  them,  and  I  'm  the 
mayor  ;  I  may  not  have  the  right  to  put  the  dogs  in  the 
pound,  but  I  have  the  right  to  put  the  men  in  prison;  I 
know  the  Code  plain  enough  as  to  that." 

"And  you  say  Monsieur  de  Souday  frequents  those 
meetings  ?  " 

"  Goodness  !  do  you  suppose  he  does  n't  ?  —  an  old  Chouan 
and  a  former  aide-de-camp  of  Charette  like  him  !  Let  him 
come  and  claim  his  dogs  ;  yes,  let  him  come  !  and  I  '11  send 
him  to  Nantes,  him  and  his  cubs  ;  they  shall  be  made  to 
explain  what  they  are  about,  roaming  the  woods  as  they 
do  at  night." 

"  But,"  exclaimed  Michel,  with  an  eagerness  there  was  no 
mistaking,  "you  told  me  yourself,  Courtin,  that  if  they 
went  about  at  night  it  was  to  help  the  poor  sick  people." 

Courtin  stepped  back  a  pace  and  pointing  his  finger  at 
his  young  master  he  said  with  his  sneering  laugh  :  — 

"  Ha  !  ha  !  I  've  caught  you." 

"  Me  !  "  said  the  young  man,  coloring,  "  how  have  you 
caught  me  ?  " 

"  Well,  they  've  caught  you." 

"  Caught  me  !  " 

"Yes,  yes,  yes  !  And  I  don't  blame  you  either;  whatever 
else  these  young  ladies  may  be,  I  must  say  they  are  pretty. 
Come,  you  need  n't  blush  that  way  ;  you  are  not  just  out 
of  a  seminary  ;  you  are  neither  a  priest,  nor  a  deacon,  nor 
a  vicar;  you  are  a  handsome  lad  of  twenty.  Go  ahead, 
Monsieur  Michel  ;  they  '11  have  very  poor  taste  if  they  don't 
like  you  when  you  like  them." 

"But,  my  dear  Courtin,"  said  Michel,  "even  supposing 
what  you  say  were  true,  which  it  is  not,  I  don't  know  these 
young  ladies  ;  I  don't  know  the  marquis.  I  can't  go  and 
call  there  just  because  I  have  happened  to  meet  those  young 
girls  once  on  horseback." 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  understand,"  said  Courtin,  in  his  jeering  way  ; 
"  they  have  n't  a  penny,  but  they  've  fine  manners.  You 
want  a  pretext,   an  excuse  for  going  there,   don't  you  ? 


84  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Well,  look  about  and  find  one  ;  you,  who  talk  Greek  and 
Latin  and  have  studied  the  Code,  you  ought  to  be  able  to 
find  one." 

Michel  shook  his  head. 

"  Oh  !  "  said  Courtin,  "  then  you  have  been  looking  for 
one  ?  " 

"  I  did  not  say  so,"  said  the  young  baron,  hastily. 

"  No,  but  I  say  so  ;  a  man  is  n't  so  old  at  forty  that  he 
can't  remember  what  he  was  at  twenty." 

Michel  was  silent  and  kept  his  head  lowered  ;  the  peas- 
ant's eye  weighed  heavily  upon  him. 

"  So  you  could  n't  find  a  way  ?  Well,  I  've  found  one 
for  you." 

"  You  !  "  cried  the  youth  eagerly,  looking  up.  Then, 
recognizing  that  he  had  let  his  secret  thoughts  escape  him, 
he  added,  shrugging  his  shoulders  :  "  How  the  devil  do  you 
know  that  I  want  to  go  to  the  castle  ?  " 

"  Well,  the  way  to  do  it,"  said  Courtin,  seeing  that  his 
master  made  no  attempt  to  deny  his  wish,  "  the  way  is 
this  —  " 

Michel  affected  indifference,  but  he  was  listening  with  all 
his  ears. 

"  You  say  to  me,  '  Père  Courtin,  you  are  mistaken  as  to 
your  rights  ;  you  cannot,  either  as  mayor  or  the  holder  of 
property  put  the  Marquis  de  Souday's  dogs  in  the  pound  ; 
you  have  a  right  to  an  indemnity,  but  this  indemnity  must 
be  amicably  agreed  upon.'  To  which  I,  Père  Courtin,  reply  : 
'  If  you  are  concerned  in  it,  Monsieur  Michel,  I  agree  ;  I 
know  your  generosity.'  On  which  you  say  :  '  Courtin,  you 
must  give  me  those  dogs  ;  the  rest  is  my  affair.'  And  I 
reply  :  '  There  are  the  dogs,  Monsieur  Michel  ;  as  for  the 
indemnity,  hang  it  !  a  gold  piece  or  two  will  play  the 
game,  and  I  don't  want  the  death  of  the  sinner.'  Then, 
don't  you  see  ?  you  write  a  bit  of  a  note  to  the  marquis  ;  you 
have  found  the  dogs,  and  you  send  them  back  by  Rousseau 
or  La  Belette,  for  fear  he  should  be  anxious.  He  can't  help 
thanking  you  and  inviting  you  to  call  and  see  him.     Per- 


galon-d'oe  and  allégko.  85 

haps,  however,  to  make  quite  sure,  you  had  better  take  the 
dogs  back  yourself." 

"  That  will  do,  Courtin,"  said  the  young  baron.  "  Leave 
the  dogs  with  me  ;  I  '11  send  them  to  the  marquis,  not  to 
make  him  invite  me  to  the  castle,  for  there 's  not  a  word  of 
truth  in  all  you  have  been  supposing,  but  because,  between 
neighbors,  it  is  a  courteous  thing  to  do." 

"  Very  good,  —  so  be  it  ;  but,  all  the  same,  they  are  two 
pretty  slips,  those  girls.     As  for  the  indemnity  —  " 

"  Ah,  yes,"  said  the  young  baron,  laughing,  "  that 's  fair  ; 
you  want  the  indemnity  for  the  injury  the  hounds  did  you  by 
passing  over  my  land  and  eating  up  half  the  hare  which 
Bertha  killed." 

And  he  gave  the  farmer  what  he  happened  to  have  in  his 
pocket,  which  was  three  or  four  louis.  It  was  lucky  for 
him  there  was  no  more,  for  he  was  so  delighted  at  finding  a 
way  to  present  himself  at  the  château  de  Souday  that  he 
would  willingly  have  given  the  farmer  ten  times  that  sum 
if  by  chance  it  had  been  in  his  purse. 

Courtin  cast  an  appreciative  eye  on  the  golden  louis  he 
had  just  received  under  the  head  of  "  indemnity,"  and  put- 
ting the  leash  in  the  hand  of  the  young  man  he  went  his 
way. 

But  after  going  a  few  steps  he  turned  round  and  came 
back  to  his  master. 

"  Don't  mix  yourself  up  too  much  with  those  people, 
Monsieur  Michel,"  he  said.  "  You  know  what  I  told  you 
just  now  about  those  messieurs  at  Torfou  and  Montaigu  ;  it 
is  all  true,  and  mark  my  words,  in  less  than  fifteen  days 
there  '11  be  a  fine  row." 

This  time  he  departed  for  good,  singing  "La  Parisienne," 
for  the  words  and  tune  of  which  he  had  a  great  predilection. 

The  young  man  was  left  alone  with  the  two  dogs. 


86  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


X. 


IN    WHICH   THINGS   DO   NOT  HAPPEN    PRECISELY  Agi   BARON 
MICHEL   DREAMED   THEY   WOULD. 

Our  lover's  first  idea  was  to  follow  Courtin's  original 
advice  and  send  the  dogs  back  to  the  Marquis  de  Souday  by 
Rousseau  and  La  Belette,  two  serving-men  belonging  partly 
to  the  château  and  partly  to  the  farm,  who  owed  the  nick- 
names by  which  Courtin  has  presented  them  to  the  reader, 
one  to  the  ruddy  color  of  his  hair,  the  other  to  the  resem- 
blance of  his  face  to  that  of  a  weasel  whose  obesity  La 
Fontaine  has  celebrated  in  one  of  his  prettiest  fables. 

But  after  due  reflection  the  young  man  feared  that  the 
Marquis  de  Souday  might  content  himself  with  sending  a 
simple  letter  of  thanks  and  no  invitation.  If,  unfortunately, 
the  marquis  should  act  thus,  the  occasion  was  lost  ;  he 
would  have  to  wait  for  another;  and  one  so  excellent  as 
this  could  not  be  expected  to  happen  every  day.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  he  took  the  dogs  back  himself  he  must  infallibly 
be  received  ;  a  neighbor  would  never  be  allowed  to  bring 
back  valuable  strayed  dogs  in  person,  over  a  distance  of  ten 
or  a  dozen  miles,  without  being  invited  in  to  rest,  and  possi- 
bly, if  it  was  late,  to  pass  the  night  at  the  castle. 

Michel  pulled  out  his  watch;  it  was  a  little  after  six. 
We  think  we  mentioned  that  Madame  la  Baronne  Michel 
had  preserved,  or  rather  had  taken  a  habit  of  dining  at 
four  o'clock.  In  her  father's  house  Madame  la  baronne  had 
dined  at  mid-day.  The  young  baron  had  therefore  ample 
time  to  go  to  the  castle. 

But  it  was  a  great  resolution  to  take  ;  and  decision  of 
character  was  not,  as  we  have  already  informed  the  reader, 


BARON   MICHEL'S   EXPECTATIONS.  87 

the  predominating  feature  in  Monsieur  Michel's  character. 
He  lost  a  quarter  of  an  hour  in  hesitation.  Fortunately,  in 
these  May  days  the  sun  did  not  set  till  eight  o'clock. 
Besides,  he  could  properly  present  himself  as  late  as 
nine. 

But  then  —  perhaps  the  young  ladies  after  a  hunting-day 
would  go  to  bed  early  ?  It  was  not,  of  course,  the  marquis 
whom  the  baron  wanted  to  see.  He  would  n't  have  gone  a 
mile  for  that  purpose  ;  whereas  to  see  Mary  he  felt  he  could 
march  a  hundred.     So  at  last  he  decided  to  start  at  once. 

Only,  and  this  was  indeed  a  hindrance,  he  suddenly  per- 
ceived that  he  had  no  hat.  To  get  it  he  must  return  to  the 
château,  at  the  risk  of  encountering  his  mother  and  all  her 
cross-questioning,  —  whose  dogs  were  those  ?  where  was  he 
going  ?  etc. 

But  did  he  really  want  a  hat  ?  The  hat,  that  is,  the  lack  of 
it,  would  be  set  down  to  neighborly  eagerness  ;  or  else  the 
wind  had  taken  it  ;  or  else  a  branch  bad  knocked  it  down  a 
ravine,  and  he  could  not  follow  it  on  account  of  the  dogs. 
At  any  rate,  it  was  worse  to  encounter  his  mother  than  to 
go  without  his  hat;  accordingly  he  started,  hatless,  leading 
the  dogs  in  the  leash. 

He  had  hardly  made  a  dozen  steps  before  he  discovered 
that  it  would  not  take  him  the  seventy-five  minutes  he  had 
calculated  to  get  to  Souday.  No  sooner  were  the  hounds 
aware  of  the  direction  in  which  their  new  leader  was  taking 
them  than  it  was  all  he  could  do  to  hold  them  back.  They 
smelt  their  kennel,  and  dragged  at  the  leash  with  all  their 
might  ;  if  harnessed  to  a  light  carriage  they  would  have 
made  the  distance  in  half  an  hour.  The  young  man,  forced 
to  keep  up  with  them  at  a  trot,  would  certainly  do  it  in 
three-quarters. 

After  twenty  minutes  of  this  lively  gait  Michel  reached 
the  forest  of  Machecoul,  intending  to  make  a  short  cut 
through  it.  It  was  necessary  to  mount  a  rather  steep  slope 
before  entering  the  wood,  and  when  he  reached  the  top  he 
halted  to  get  his  breath.     Not  so  with  the  dogs,  who  got 


88  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

their  breath  while  running  and  wanted  to  keep  on  their 
way.  The  baron  opposed  this  desire  by  planting  himself 
firmly  on  his  feet  and  leaning  back  while  they  dragged  him 
forward.  Two  equal  forces  neutralize  each  other,  —  that  is 
one  of  the  first  principles  of  mechanics.  The  young  baron 
was  the  stronger,  therefore  he  neutralized  the  force  of  the 
two  dogs. 

This  done,  and  quiet  resulting,  he  took  out  his  handker- 
chief to  mop  his  forehead.  While  he  did  so,  enjoying  the 
cool  freshness  of  the  breeze  as  it  breathed  on  his  face  from 
the  invisible  lips  of  evening,  he  fancied  he  heard  a  cry 
wafted  upon  that  breeze.  The  dogs  heard  it  too,  and  they 
answered  it  with  that  long,  mournful  cry  of  a  lost  animal. 
Then  they  began  to  pull  at  their  chain  with  fresh  energy. 

The  baron  was  now  rested  and  his  forehead  was  mopped  ; 
he  was  therefore  quite  as  ready  as  Galon-d'Or  and  Allégro 
to  continue  the  way  ;  instead  of  leaning  back  he  leaned  for- 
ward, and  his  little  jog-trot  was  resumed. 

He  had  scarcely  gone  a  few  hundred  steps  before  the 
same  cry,  or  rather  call,  was  repeated,  but  very  much  nearer 
and  therefore  more  distinct  than  the  first.  The  dogs 
answered  by  a  long  howl  and  a  more  determined  drag  on 
their  collars.  The  young  man  now  felt  certain  that  the  cry 
proceeded  from  some  one  in  search  of  the  dogs,  and  he 
bawled  to  them  (hauler).  We  beg  pardon  of  our  readers  for 
using  so  unacademic  a  word,  but  it  is  the  one  our  peasants 
use  to  represent  the  peculiar  shout  of  a  huntsman  calling  in 
his  dogs.  It  has  the  advantage  of  being  expressive  ;  and 
besides  (for  a  last  and  better  reason),  I  know  no  other. 

About  six  hundred  paces  farther  on  the  same  cry  was  re- 
peated for  the  third  time  by  the  seeking  man  and  the  miss- 
ing hounds.  This  time  Galon-d'Or  and  Allégro  tore  along 
with  such  vigor  that  their  conductor  was  almost  carried  off 
his  feet,  and  was  forced  to  make  his  jog-trot  a  quick  trot 
and  his  quick  trot  a  gallop. 

He  had  scarcely  kept  along  at  that  pace  for  three  minutes 
before  a  man  appeared  among  the  trees,  jumped  the  ditch 


BARON   MICHEL'S   EXPECTATIONS.  89 

beside  the  road,  and  barred  the  baron's  way.  The  man  was 
Jean  Oullier. 

"  Ah,  ha  !  "  he  cried  ;  "  so  it 's  you,  my  pretty  man,  who 
not  only  turn  my  dogs  off  the  trail  of  the  wolf  I  am  hunting 
to  that  of  a  hare  you  're  after,  but  actually  couple  them, 
and  lead  'em  in  a  leash  !  " 

"  Monsieur,"  said  the  young  man,  all  out  of  breath,  "  if 
I  have  coupled  them  and  led  them  it  is  to  have  the  honor 
of  returning  them  to  Monsieur  le  Marquis  de  Souday 
myself." 

"  Ho  !  yes,  that 's  a  likely  story,  —  with  no  hat  on  your 
head  !  You  need  n't  trouble  yourself  any  further,  my  good 
sir.     Now  you  've  met  me  I  '11  take  them  back  myself." 

So  saying,  and  before  Monsieur  Michel  had  time  to 
oppose  or  even  guess  his  intention,  Jean  Oullier  wrenched 
the  chain  from  his  hand  and  threw  it  on  the  necks  of  the 
hounds,  very  much  as  we  throw  a  bridle  on  the  neck  of  a 
horse.  Finding  themselves  at  liberty  the  dogs  darted  at 
full  speed  in  the  direction  of  the  castle,  followed  by  Jean 
Oullier,  whose  pace  was  equal  to  theirs  as  he  cracked  his 
whip  and  shouted:  — 

"  Kennel  !  kennel,  scamps  !  " 

The  whole  scene  was  so  rapid  that  dogs  and  man  were 
nearly  out  of  sight  before  the  young  baron  recovered  him- 
self. He  stopped  short  helplessly  in  the  roadway,  and 
must  have  been  there  ten  minutes,  gazing,  with  his  mouth 
open,  in  the  direction  Jean  Oullier  and  the  dogs  had  taken, 
when  the  soft  and  caressing  voice  of  a  young  girl  said  close 
beside  him  :  — 

"  Gracious  goodness  !  Monsieur  le  baron,  what  are  you 
doing  here  at  this  hour,  bare-headed  ?  " 

What  he  was  doing,  the  young  man  would  have  been 
rather  puzzled  to  say  ;  in  point  of  fact  he  was  following  his 
hopes,  which  had  flown  away  in  the  direction  of  the  castle, 
whither  he  dared  not  follow  them.  He  turned  round  to  see 
who  spoke  to  him,  and  recognized  his  foster-sister,  the 
daughter  of  the  farmer  Tinguy. 


90  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Oh,  it  is  you,  Rosine,  is  it  ?  "  he  said  ;  "  what  are  you 
doing  here  yourself?" 

"  Monsieur  le  baron,"  said  the  girl,  in  a  tearful  voice,  "  I 
have  just  oome  from  the  château  de  la  Logerie,  where 
Madame  la  baronne  treated  me  very  unkindly." 

"  Why  so,  Rosine  ?  You  know  my  mother  loves  you  and 
takes  care  of  you." 

"  Yes,  as  a  general  thing  ;  but  not  to-day." 

"Why  not  to-day  ?" 

"  She  has  just  had  me  turned  out  of  the  house." 

"  Why  did  n't  you  ask  for  me  ?  " 

"  I  did  ask  for  you,  Monsieur  le  baron,  but  they  said  yon 
were  not  at  home." 

"  I  was  at  home  ;  I  have  only  just  come  out,  my  dear  ; 
for  fast  as  you  may  have  come,  I'll  answer  for  it  I  came 
faster!" 

"  Maybe  ;  it  is  likely  enough,  Monsieur  le  baron  ;  for 
when  Madame  was  so  cruel  to  me  I  thought  I  would  come 
and  ask  the  wolves  to  help  me,  but  could  n't  decide  at  once 
to  do  so." 

"  What  help  can  the  wolves  give  you  ?  " 

Michel  forced  himself  to  utter  the  word. 

"  The  help  I  wanted  Madame  la  baronne  to  give  me,  for 
my  poor  father  who  is  very  ill." 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  him  ?  " 

"  A  fever  he  caught  in  the  marshes." 

"  A  fever  ?  "  repeated  Michel  ;  "  is  it  a  malignant  fever, 
—  intermittent  or  typhoid  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,  Monsieur  le  baron." 

"  What  does  the  doctor  say  ?  " 

"  Oh,  goodness  !  the  doctor  lives  at  Palluau  ;  he  won't 
trouble  himself  to  come  here  under  five  francs,  and  we  are 
not  rich  enough  to  pay  five  francs  for  a  doctor's  visit." 

"  And  did  n't  my  mother  give  you  any  money  ?  " 

"  Why,  I  told  you  she  would  n't  even  see  me  !  '  A 
fever  !  '  she  said  ;  '  and  Rosine  dares  to  come  to  the  chateau 
when  her  father  has  a  fever  ?     Send  her  away.'  " 


BARON  MICHEL'S   EXPECTATIONS.  91 

"  Oh,  impossible  !  " 

"  I  heard  her,  Monsieur  le  baron,  she  spoke  so  loud  ;  be- 
sides, the  proof  is  that  they  turned  ine  out  of  the  house." 

"Wait,  wait!"  cried  the  young  man  eagerly,  "I'll  give 
you  the  money."  He  felt  in  his  pockets.  Then  he  remem- 
bered that  he  had  given  Courtin  all  he  had  with  him. 
"  Confound  it  !  I  have  n't  a  penny  on  me,"  he  said.  "  Conic 
back  with  me  to  the  château,  Rosine,  and  I  '11  give  you  all 
you  want." 

"  No,  no  !  "  said  the  young  girl  ;  "  I  would  n't  go  back  for 
all  the  gold  in  the  world  !  No,  my  resolution  is  taken  :  I 
shall  go  to  the  wolves  ;  they  are  charitable  ;  they  won't  turn 
away  a  poor  girl  who  wants  help  for  a  dying  father." 

"  But  —  but,"  said  the  young  man,  hesitating,  "  I  am  told 
they  are  not  rich." 

"  Who  are  not  rich  ?  " 

"  The  Demoiselles  de  Souday." 

"  Oh  !  it  is  n't  money  people  ask  of  them,  —  it  is  n't 
alms  they  give  ;  it  is  something  better  than  that,  and  God 
knows  it." 

"  What  is  it,  then  ?  " 

"  They  go  themselves  when  people  are  sick  ;  and  if  they 
can't  cure  them,  they  comfort  them  in  dying,  and  mourn 
with  those  who  are  left." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  young  man,  "  that  may  be  for  ordinary 
illness,  but  when  it  is  a  dangerous  fever  —  " 

"  They  would  n't  mind  that,  —  not  they  !  There 's  nothing 
dangerous  to  kind  hearts.  I  shall  go  to  them,  and  you  '11 
see  they'll  come.  If  you  stay  here  ten  minutes  more 
you  '11  see  me  coming  back  with  one  or  other  of  the  sisters, 
who  will  help  me  nurse  my  father.  Good-bye,  Monsieur 
Michel.  I  never  would  have  thought  Madame  la  baronne 
could  be  so  cruel  !  To  drive  away  like  a  thief  the  daughter 
of  the  woman  who  nursed  you  !  " 

The  girl  walked  on  and  the  young  man  made  no  answer  ; 
there  was  nothing  he  could  say.  But  Rosine  had  dropped  a 
word  which  remained  in  his  mind  :  "  If  you  stay  here  ten 


92  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

minutes  you  will  see  me  coming  back  with  one  or  other  of 
the  sisters."  He  resolved  to  stay.  The  opportunity  he  had 
lost  in  one  direction  came  back  to  him  from  another.  Oh  ! 
if  only  Mary  should  be  the  one  to  come  out  with  Rosine  ! 

But  how  could  he  suppose  that  a  young  girl  of  eighteen, 
the  daughter  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  would  leave  her 
home  at  eight  o'clock  at  night  and  go  five  miles  to  nurse  a 
poor  peasant  ill  of  a  dangerous  fever?  It  was  not  only 
improbable,  but  it  was  actually  impossible.  Rosine  must 
have  made 'the  sisters  better  than  they  were,  just  as  others 
made  them  worse. 

Besides,  was  it  believable  that  his  mother,  noted  for  her 
piety  and  claiming  all  the  virtues,  could  have  acted  in 
this  affair  just  the  reverse  of  two  young  girls  of  whom  so 
much  evil  was  said  in  the  neighborhood?  But  if  things 
should  happen  as  Bosine  said,  would  n't  that  prove  that 
these  young  girls  had  souls  after  God's  own  heart?  Of 
course,  however,  it  was  quite  certain  that  neither  of  them 
would  come. 

The  young  man  was  repeating  this  for  the  tenth  time  in 
as  many  minutes  when  he  saw,  at  the  angle  of  the  road 
round  which  Bosine  had  disappeared,  the  shadows  of  two 
women.  In  spite  of  the  coming  darkness  he  saw  that  one 
was  Bosine  ;  but  as  for  the  person  with  her,  it  was  impos- 
sible to  recognize  her  identity,  for  she  was  wrapped  in  a 
large  mantle. 

Baron  Michel  was  so  perplexed  in  mind,  and  his  heart 
above  all  was  so  agitated,  that  his  legs  failed  him,  and  he 
stood  stock-still  till  the  girls  came  up  to  him. 

"Well,  Monsieur  le  baron,"  said  Bosine,  with  much 
pride,   "what  did  I  tell  you?" 

"What  did  you  tell  him?  "  said  the  girl  in  the  mantle. 

Michel  sighed.  By  the  firm  and  decided  tone  of  voice 
he  knew  she  was  Bertha. 

"  I  told  him  that  I  should  n't  be  turned  away  from  your 
house  as  I  was  from  the  château  de  la  Logerie,"  answered 
Bosine. 


BARON    MICHEL'S    EXPECTATIONS.  93 

"But,"  said  Michel,  "perhaps  you  have  not  told  Made- 
moiselle de  Souday  what  is  the  matter  with  your  father." 

"From  the  symptoms,"  said  Bertha,  "I  suppose  it  is 
typhoid  fever.  That  is  why  we  have  not  a  minute  to  lose; 
it  is  an  illness  that  requires  to  be  taken  in  time.  Are  you 
coming  with  us,  Monsieur  Michel?" 

"But,  mademoiselle,"  said  the  young  man,  "typhoid 
fever  is  contagious." 

"Some  say  it  is,  and  others  say  it  is  not,"  replied  Bertha, 
carelessly. 

"But,"  insisted  Michel,  "it  is  deadly." 

"Yes,  in  many  cases;  though  it  is  often  cured." 

The  young  man  went  close  up  to  Bertha. 

"  Are  you  really  going  to  expose  yourself  to  such  a  dan- 
ger? "  he  said. 

"Of  course  I  am." 

"For  an  unknown  man,  a  stranger  to  you?" 

"Those  who  are  strangers  to  us,"  said  Bertha,  with 
infinite  gentleness,  "are  fathers,  brothers,  husbands,  to 
other  human  beings.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  stranger 
in  this  world,  Monsieur  Michel;  even  to  you  this  man  may 
be  something." 

"He  was  the  husband  of  my  nurse,"  stammered  Michel. 

"There!  you  see,"  said  Bertha,  "you  can't  regard  him 
as  a  stranger." 

"  I  did  offer  to  go  back  to  the  château  with  Rosine  and 
give  her  the  money  to  get  a  doctor." 

"And  she  refused,  preferring  to  come  to  us?  Thank 
you,  Rosine,"  said  Bertha. 

The  young  man  was  dumfounded.  He  had  heard  of 
charity,  but  he  had  never  seen  it;  and  here  it  was  embodied 
in  the  form  of  Bertha.  He  followed  the  young  girls 
thoughtfully,    with  his  head  down. 

"If  you  are  coming  with  us,  Monsieur  Michel,"  said 
Bertha,  "be  so  kind  as  to  carry  this  little  box,  which 
contains  the  medicines." 

"No,"  said  Rosine,  "Monsieur  le  baron  can't  come  with 


94  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

us,  for  he  knows  what  a  dread  madame  has  of  contagious 
diseases." 

"You  are  mistaken,  Kosine,"  said  the  young  man;  "I 
am  going  with  you." 

And  he  took  the  box  from  Bertha's  hands.  An  hour 
later  they  all  three  reached  the  cottage  of  the  sick  man. 


THE    FOSTER-FATHER.  95 


XI. 


THE   FOSTER-FATHER. 


The  cottage  stood,  not  in  the  village  but  on  the  outskirts 
of  it,  a  gunshot  distant  or  thereabouts.  It  was  close  to  a 
little  wood,  into  which  the  back-door  opened. 

The  goodman  Tinguy  —  that  was  the  term  usually 
applied  to  Rosine's  father  —  was  a  Chouan  of  the  old  type. 
While  still  a  lad,  he  fought  through  the  first  war  in  La 
Vendée  under  Jolly,  Couëtu,  Charette,  La  Rochejaquelein, 
and  others.  He  was  afterwards  married  and  had  two 
children.  The  eldest,  a  boy,  had  been  drafted,  and  was 
now  in  the  army;  the  youngest  was  Rosine. 

At  the  birth  of  each  child  the  mother,  like  other  poor 
peasant-women,  had  taken  a  nursling.  The  foster-brother 
of  the  boy  was  the  last  scion  of  a  noble  family  of  Maine, 
Henri  de  Bonneville,  who  will  presently  appear  in  this 
history.  The  foster-brother  of  Rosine  was,  as  we  have 
already  said,  Michel  de  la  Logerie,  one  of  the  chief  actors 
in  our  drama. 

Henri  de  Bonneville  was  two  years  older  than  Michel; 
the  two  boys  had  often  played  together  on  the  threshold  of 
the  door  that  Michel  was  about  to  cross,  following  Bertha 
and  Rosine.  Later  on  they  met  in  Paris  ;  and  Madame  de- 
là Logerie  had  encouraged  the  intimacy  of  her  son  with  a 
young  man  of  large  fortune  and  high  rank  in  the  Western 
provinces. 

These  foster-children  had  greatly  eased  the  circum- 
stances of  the  Tinguy  family  ;  but  the  Vendéan  peasant  is 
so  constituted  that  he  never  admits  that  he  is  comfortably 


96  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

off.  Tinguy  was  now  making  himself  out  poor  at  the 
expense  of  his  life.  Ill  as  he  was,  nothing  would  have 
induced,  him  to  send  to  Palluau  for  a  doctor,  whose  visit 
would  have  cost  him  five  francs.  Besides,  no  peasant, 
and  the  Vendéan  peasant  least  of  all,  believes  in  a  doctor 
or  in  medicine.  This  was  why  Rosine,  when  they  wanted 
help,  applied  first  at  the  château  de  la  Logerie,  as  foster- 
sister  of  the  young  baron,  and  then,  being  driven  thence, 
to  the  Demoiselles  de  Souday. 

At  the  noise  the  young  people  made  on  entering  the  sick 
man  rose  on  his  elbow,  with  difficulty,  but  immediately 
fell  back  on  the  bed  with  a  piteous  moan.  A  candle  was 
burning,  which  lighted  the  bed  only;  the  rest  of  the  room 
was  in  darkness.  The  light  showed,  on  a  species  of  cot 
or  pallet,  a  man  over  fifty  years  of  age,  struggling  in  the 
grasp  of  the  demon  of  fever.  He  was  pale  to  lividness; 
his  eyes  were  glassy  and  sunken,  and  from  time  to  time 
his  body  shook  from  head  to  foot,  as  if  it  had  come  in 
contact  with  a  galvanic  battery. 

Michel  shuddered  at  the  sight.  He  understood  at  once 
why  his  mother,  fearing  contagion,  and  knowing  that 
Rosine  must  come  from  that  bedside  impregnated  with 
the  miasmas  of  the  disease,  which  were  floating  almost 
visibly  in  the  circle  of  light  around  that  dying  bed,  was 
unwilling  to  let  Rosine  enter  the  château.  He  wished 
for  camphor,  or  chloride  of  lime,  or  some  disinfectant  to 
isolate  the  sick  man  from  the  well  man,  but  having 
nothing  of  the  kind  he  stood  as  near  the  door  as  he  could 
to  breathe  the  fresh  air. 

As  for  Bertha,  she  seemed  to  pay  no  attention  to  all 
that;  she  went  straight  to  the  patient  and  took  his  hand. 
Michel  made  a  motion  as  if  to  stop  her,  and  opened  his 
lips  to  utter  a  cry;  but  he  was,  in  a  measure,  petrified  by 
the  boldness  of  her  charity,  and  he  kept  his  place  silently, 
in  admiring  terror. 

Bertha  questioned  the  sick  man.  He  replied  that  in  the 
morning,  when  he  rose  he  had  felt  so  weary  that  his  legs 


THE   FOSTER-FATHER.  97 

gave  way  under  him  when  he  attempted  to  walk.  This 
was  a  warning  given  by  Nature;  but  the  peasantry  seldom 
pay  heed  to  such  advice.  Instead  of  getting  back  into  bed 
and  sending  for  a  doctor,  Tinguy  dressed  himself,  went 
down  into  the  cellar  for  a  pot  of  cider,  and  cut  himself  a 
slice  of  bread,  — to  "strengthen  him  up,"  as  he  said.  His 
pot  of  cider  tasted  good,  but  he  could  not  eat  the  bread. 
Then  he  went  to  his  work  in  the  fields. 

As  he  went  along,  he  had  terrible  pains  in  his  head  and 
a  bleeding  at  the  nose  ;  his  weariness  was  excessive,  and 
he  was  forced  to  sit  down  ouce  or  twice.  When  he  came 
to  a  brook  he  drank  of  it;  but  this  did  not  slake  his  thirst, 
which  was  so  great  that  he  even  drank  the  water  out  of  a 
puddle.  When  at  last  he  reached  his  field  he  had  not  the 
strength  to  put  a  spade  into  the  furrow  he  had  begun  the 
night  before,  and  he  stood  for  some  moments  leaning  on  his 
tool.  Then  his  head  turned,  and  he  lay  down,  or  rather 
fell  down  on  the  ground  in  a  state  of  utter  prostration. 

There  he  remained  till  seven  in  the  evening,  and  might 
have  stayed  all  night  if  a  peasant  from  the  little  town  of 
Lege  had  not  happened  to  come  along.  Seeing  a  man 
lying  in  the  field,  he  called  to  him.  Tinguy  did  not 
answer,  but  he  made  a  movement.  The  peasant  went 
nearer  and  recognized  him.  With  great  difficulty  he  got 
the  sick  man  home  ;  Tinguy  was  so  feeble  that  it  took  him 
over  an  hour  to  go  half  a  mile. 

Rosine  was  watching  for  him  anxiously.  When  she  saw 
him  she  was  frightened,  and  wished  to  go  to  Palluau  and 
fetch  the  doctor;  but  her  father  positively  forbade  it,  and 
went  to  bed,  declaring  it  would  be  nothing  and  the  next 
day  he  should  be  well.  But  as  his  thirst,  instead  of  les- 
sening, continued  to  increase,  he  told  Rosine  to  put  a 
pitcher  of  water  by  his  bedside  for  the  night.  He  spent 
the  night  thus,  devoured  by  thirst,  and  drinking  inces- 
santly without  allaying  the  fever  that  burned  within  him. 
The  next  morning  he  tried  to  rise;  but  he  no  sooner  sat 
up  in  bed  than  his  head,  in  which  he  complained  of  violent 

VOL.   I.  —  7 


98  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

shooting  pains,  became  dizzy,  and  he  was  seized  with  a 
violent  pain  in  the  right  side. 

Rosine  insisted  on  going  for  M.  Roger  (that  was  the 
name  of  the  doctor  at  Palluau)  ;  but  again  her  father  for- 
bade her.  The  girl  then  stayed  quietly  by  his  bed,  ready 
to  obey  his  wishes  and  serve  his  needs.  His  greatest  need 
was  for  drink;  every  ten  minutes  he  asked  for  water. 

Matters  went  on  thus  till  four  in  the  afternoon.  Then 
the  sick  man  shook  his  head  and  said,  "  I  see  I  have  got  a 
bad  fever;  you  must  go  and  get  me  some  help  from  the 
good  ladies  at  the  castle."  We  know  the  results  of 
Rosine's   expedition. 

After  feeling  the  sick  man's  piilse  and  listening  to  this 
account  of  his  illness,  given  with  great  difficulty,  Bertha, 
who  counted  above  a  hundred  pulsations,  was  sure  that 
Tinguy  was  in  a  dangerous  state.  What  the  exact  nature 
of  the  fever  was  she  was  too  ignorant  of  the  science  of 
medicine  to  decide.  But  as  the  sick  man  was  constantly 
crying  for  "Drink!  drink!"  she  cut  a  lemon  in  slices, 
boiled  it  in  a  potful  of  water,  sweetened  it  slightly,  and 
let  the  sick  man  drink  it  in  place  of  pure  water. 

It  is  to  be  remarked  that  when  she  wanted  to  sweeten 
the  infusion  Rosine  told  her  there  was  no  sugar  in  the 
house;  sugar,  to  a  Vendéan  peasant,  is  the  supreme  of 
luxury.  Fortunately,  the  provident  Bertha  had  put  a  few 
lumps  into  the  little  box  which  contained  her  medicines. 
She  cast  her  eyes  about  her  in  search  of  the  box,  and  saw 
it  under  the  arm  of  the  young  man,  who  was  still  standing 
near  the  door. 

She  made  him  a  sign  to  come  to  her;  but  before  he  could 
obey  she  made  him  another  sign  to  stay  where  he  was. 
Then  she  went  up  to  him  herself,  laying  a  finger  on  her 
lips,  and  said  in  a  low  voice,  so  that  the  patient  might  not 
hear  her  :  — 

"The  man's  condition  is  very  serious.  I  dare  not  take 
much  upon  myself.  It  is  absolutely  necessary  to  have  a 
doctor,  and  even  so,  I  fear  it  will  be  too  late.     Will  you 


THE   FOSTER-FATHER.  99 

go  to  Palluau,  dear  Monsieur  Michel,  and  fetch  Doctor 
Roger?  Meantime  I  will  give  Tinguy  something  to  quiet 
him." 

"But  you  —  you?  "  said  the  young  baron,  anxiously. 

"I  shall  stay  here;  you  will  find  me  when  you  get  back. 
I  have  some  important  things  to  say  to  the  patient." 

"Important  things?"  said  Michel,  astonished. 

"Yes." 

"But  —  "  insisted  the  young  man. 

"  I  assure  you,  "  interrupted  the  young  girl,  "  that  every 
minute's  delay  is  of  consequence.  Taken  in  time  these 
fevers  are  often  fatal;  neglected,  as  this  has  been,  there 
is  little  hope.  Go  at  once,  —  at  once,  and  bring  back  the 
doctor." 

"But,"  persisted  the  young  man,  "suppose  the  fever  is 
contagious?  " 

"What  then?" 

"Won't  you  run  great  risk  of  taking  it?  " 

"My  dear  monsieur,"  said  Bertha,  "if  we  stopped  to 
think  about  such  things  half  the  sick  peasants  would  die. 
Come,  go;  and  trust  to  God  to  take  care  of  me." 

She  held  out  her  hand  to  him  ;  the  young  man  took  it. 
Carried  away  by  the  admiration  he  felt  at  seeing  in  a 
woman  a  grand  and  simple  courage  of  which  he,  a  man, 
was  incapable,  he  pressed  his  lips  with  a  sort  of  passion 
upon  it. 

The  movement  was  so  rapid  and  unexpected  that  Bertha 
quivered,  turned  very  pale,  and  sighed  as  she  said  :  — 

"Go,  friend;  go!" 

She  did  not  need,  this  time,  to  reiterate  her  order. 
Michel  sprang  from  the  cottage.  A  mysterious  fire  seemed 
to  run  through  his  veins  and  doubled  his  vital  power;  he 
felt  a  strange,  new  force  within  him.  He  fancied  he  was 
capable  of  accomplishing  miracles;  it  seemed  to  him  that 
like  the  antique  Mercury,  wings  had  grown  upon  his  head 
and  heels.  If  a  wall  had  barred  the  way  he  would  have 
scaled  it;  if  a  river  were  flowing  across  his  path,  without 


100  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

bridge  or  ford,  he  would  have  swum  it,  not  stopping  to 
fling  off  his  clothes.  He  only  regretted  that  Bertha  had 
asked  him  to  do  so  easy  a  thing;  he  would  fain  have  had 
obstacles,  some  difficult  —  nay,  impossible  —  quest!  How 
could  Bertha  be  grateful  to  him  for  only  going  a  few  miles 
to  fetch  a  doctor?  A  few  miles!  when  he  longed  to  go  to 
the  end  of  the  world  for  her!  Why  could  n't  he  give  some 
proof  of  heroism  which  might  match  his  courage  with 
Bertha's  own? 

Of  course,  in  such  a  state  of  exaltation  the  young 
baron  never  dreamed  of  fatigue.  The  three  and  a  half 
miles  to  Palluau  were  done  in  less  than  half  an  hour. 
Doctor  Boger  was  a  familiar  visitor  at  the  château  of  La 
Loger ie,  which  is  hardly  an  hour's  distance  from  Palluau. 
Michel  had  only  to  send  up  his  name  before  the  doctor, 
who  had  gone  to  bed  called  out  that  he  would  be  ready  in 
five  minutes. 

At  the  end  of  that  time  he  appeared  in  the  salon,  and 
asked  the  young  man  what  could  possibly  bring  him  there 
at  that  unusual  time  of  night.  In  two  words  Michel  told 
the  doctor  the  state  of  the  case;  and  as  M.  Boger  seemed 
a  good  deal  surprised  at  his  taking  so  lively  an  interest  in 
a  peasant  as  to  come  on  foot,  at  night,  with  an  agitated 
manner  and  bathed  in  perspiration,  the  young  baron  has- 
tened to  explain  his  interest  by  the  ties  of  affection  which 
naturally  bound  him  to  his  foster-father. 

Questioned  by  the  doctor  as  to  the  symptoms  of  the  ill- 
ness, Michel  repeated  faithfully  all  he  had  heard,  and 
begged  M.  Boger  to  take  with  him  the  necessary  remedies, 
—  the  village  of  Lege  not  yet  having  attained  to  the  civili- 
zation of  possessing  an  apothecary.  Noticing  that  the 
young  baron  was  reeking  with  perspiration,  and  finding 
that  he  had  come  on  foot,  the  doctor,  who  had  already 
ordered  his  horse  to  be  saddled,  changed  the  order  and  had 
him  harnessed  to  his  carriole. 

Michel  was  most  anxious  to  prevent  this  arrangement; 
he  declared  that  he  could  go  on  foot  much  faster  than  the 


THE   FOSTER-FATHER.  101 

doctor  could  go  on  horseback.  He  was,  in  fact,  so  power- 
ful, with  that  valiant  vigor  of  youth  and  heart,  that  he 
probably  could  have  done  so  as  fast,  or  even  faster,  than 
the  doctor  on  his  horse.  The  doctor  insisted,  Michel 
refused;  and  the  discussion  ended  by  his  darting  out  of 
the  house  and  calling  back  to  Monsieur  Roger:  — 

"Come  as  fast  as  you  can.     I  '11  announce  your  coming!  " 

The  doctor  began  to  think  that  Madame  de  la  Logerie's 
son  was  mad.  He  said  to  himself  that  he  should  soon 
overtake  him,  and  did  not  change  the  order  for  the 
carriole. 

It  was  the  thought  of  appearing  before  the  eyes  of  the 
young  girl  in  a  carriole  which  so  exasperated  the  lover. 
He  fancied  Bertha  would  feel  more  grateful  to  him  if  she 
saw  him  arrive  all  out  of  breath  and  open  the  cottage  door, 
crying  out,  "  Here  I  am  !  the  doctor  is  following  me  !  " 
than  if  she  saw  him  driving  up  in  a  carriole,  accompanying 
the  doctor.  On  horseback,  on  a  fine  courser,  mane  and 
tail  flying  in  the  wind,  his  arrival  announced  by  snorts 
and  neighs,  it  would  have  been  another  thing;  but  in  a 
carriole!  —  ten  thousand  times  better  go  on  foot!  A  first 
love  teems  with  poesy,  and  it  feels  a  bitter  hatred  to  the 
prosaic.  What  would  Mary  think  when  her  sister  told  her 
she  had  sent  the  young  baron  to  Palluau  for  Doctor  Roger, 
and  that  the  young  baron  had  returned  in  the  doctor's 
carriole  ! 

No,  no;  better  a  thousand  times,  as  we  have  said,  arrive 
on  foot.  The  young  fellow  understood  very  well  that  this 
first  appearance  on  the  stage  of  love  with  heaving  breast 
and  ardent  eyes,  dust  on  his  clothes,  hair  streaming  in  the 
wind,  was  good,  good,  and  well  done.  As  for  the  patient, 
heavens!  he  was  well-nigh  forgotten,  we  must  admit, 
in  the  midst  of  this  excitement;  at  any  rate,  it  was  not 
of  him  that  Michel  thought,  but  of  the  two  sisters.  His 
poor  foster-father  would  not  have  driven  him  across  the 
country  at  the  rate  of  seven  miles  an  hour;  it  was  Bertha,) 
it  was  Mary.     The  exciting  cause  in  this  grand  physiologi- 


102  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

cal  cataclysm  now  taking  place  in  onr  hero  had  become  a 
mere  accessory.  Michel,  under  the  name  of  Hippomenes, 
struggling  for  the  prize  with  Atalanta,  had  no  need  to 
drop  the  golden  apples  on  his  way.  He  laughed  to  scorn 
the  idea  that  the  doctor  and  his  horse  could  overtake  him; 
and  he  felt  a  sensation  of  physical  delight  as  the  cold 
night-wind  chilled  the  moisture  on  his  brow.  Overtaken 
by  the  doctor!     Sooner  death  than  that! 

It  had  taken  him  half  an  hour  to  go  ;  it  took  him  twenty- 
five  minutes  to  return. 

As  though  Bertha  had  expected  or  divined  this  impossi- 
ble celerity,  she  had  gone  to  the  threshold  of  the  door  to 
await  her  messenger.  She  knew  that  in  all  probability  he 
could  not  be  back  till  half  an  hour  later,  and  yet  she  went 
out  to  listen  for  him.  She  thought  she  heard  steps  in  the 
far  distance.  Impossible!  it  could  not  be  he  already;  and 
yet  she  never  doubted  that  it  was  he. 

In  fact,  a  moment  later  she  saw  him  looming,  appearing, 
then  clearly  defined  upon  the  darkness,  while  at  the  same 
time  he,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  door,  all  the  while 
doubting  them,  saw  her  standing  there  motionless,  her 
hand  on  her  heart,  which,  for  the  first  time  in  her  life, 
was  beating  violently. 

When  he  reached  her  the  youth,  like  the  Greek  of 
Marathon,  was  voiceless,  breathless,  and  came  near  drop- 
ping, if  not  as  dead  as  the  Greek,  at  least  in  a  faint.  He 
had  only  strength  to  say  :  — 

"The  doctor  is  following  me." 

Then,  in  order  not  to  fall,  he  leaned  with  his  hand 
against  the  wall.  If  he  could  have  said  more  he  might 
have  cried  :  — 

"You  will  tell  Mademoiselle  Mary,  won't  you?  that  it 
was  for  love  of  her  and  of  you  that  I  have  done  seven  miles 
in  fifty  minutes." 

But  he  could  not  speak;  so  that  Bertha  believed,  and 
had  ground  for  believing,  that  it  was  for  love  of  her,  and 
her  alone,  that  the  young  messenger  had   performed   his 


THE    FOSTER-FATHER.  103 

feat.  She  smiled  with  pleasure.  Drawing  her  handker- 
chief from  her  pocket,  she  said,  softly  wiping  the  young 
man's  forehead,  and  taking  great  care  not  to  touch  his 
wound  :  — 

"Good  heavens!  how  sorry  I  am  that  you  took  my 
request  to  hasten  so  much  to  heart!  What  a  state  you  are 
in!  "  Then  scolding  him  like  a  mother,  she  added  in  a 
tender  tone,   "What  a  child  you  are!" 

That  word  "  child  "  was  said  in  a  tone  of  such  indescrib- 
able tenderness  that  it  made  Michel  quiver.  He  seized 
Bertha's  hand;  it  was  moist  and  trembling.  Just  then 
the  sound  of  wheels  was  heard  on  the  high-road. 

"  Ah  !  here  is  the  doctor,  "  she  cried,  pushing  away  the 
young  man's  hand. 

Michel  looked  at  her  in  amazement.  Why  did  she  push 
away  his  hand?  He  was,  of  course,  unable  to  give  a  (dear 
account  to  himself  of  what  was  passing  in  a  girl's  mind; 
but  he  felt,  instinctively,  that  although  she  repulsed  him 
it  was  not  from  dislike  or  anger. 

Bertha  went  back  into  the  cottage,  no  doubt  to  prepare 
for  the  doctor's  arrival.  Michel  stayed  at  the  door  to 
receive  him.  When  he  saw  him  coming  along  in  his 
wicker  vehicle,  which  shook  him  grotesquely,  the  young 
fellow  congratulated  himself  more  than  ever  for  having 
come  on  foot.  It  was  true  that  if  Bertha  had  gone  in,  as 
she  had  just  done,  when  she  heard  the  wheels  she  would 
not  have  seen  him  in  that  vulgar  trap.  But  if  he  had  not 
already  returned  would  she,  or  would  she  not,  have  waited 
till  he  came? 

Michel  told  himself  that  it  was  more  than  probable  she 
would  have  waited,  and  he  felt  in  his  heart,  if  not  the 
warm  satisfactions  of  love,  at  any  rate  the  soft  ticklings 
of  vanity. 


104  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 


XII. 

NOBLESSE    OBLIGE. 

When  the  doctor  entered  the  room  Bertha  was  beside  the 
patient.  The  first  thing  that  met  M.  Roger's  eyes  was 
her  graceful  form,  like  those  of  the  angels  in  German 
legends  bending  forward  to  receive  the  souls  of  the  dying. 
He  knew  her  at  once,  for  he  was  rarely  called  to  the  cot- 
tages of  the  poor  that  he  did  not  find  either  her  or  her 
sister  between  death  and  the  dying. 

"Oh,  doctor,"  she  said,  "come  quick!  poor  Tinguy  is 
delirious." 

The  patient  was  under  much  excitement.  The  doctor 
went  to  him. 

"Come,  friend,"  said  he,  "be  calm." 

"Let  me  alone!  let  me  alone!  "  cried  Tinguy.  "I  must 
get  up;  they  want  me  at  Montaigu." 

"No,  dear  Tinguy,"  said  Bertha,  "no;  they  are  not 
expecting  you  just  yet." 

"Yes,  mademoiselle;  yes,  they  are!  It  was  for  to-night. 
Who  will  go  from  house  to  house  and  carry  the  news  if 
I  'm   not  there?  " 

"Hush,  Tinguy,  hush!"  said  Bertha;  "remember  you 
are  ill,  and  Doctor  Roger  is  here." 

"Doctor  Roger,  is  one  of  us,  mademoiselle;  we  can  talk 
before  him.  He  knows  they  are  waiting  for  me;  he  knows 
I  must  get  up  at  once.     I  must  go  to  Montaigu." 

Doctor  Roger  and  the  young  girl  looked  at  each  other. 

"Massa,"  said  the  doctor. 

"Marseille,"  replied  Bertha. 


NOBLESSE    OBLIGE.  105 

And  then,  with  a  spontaneous  movement,  they  shook 
hands. 

Bertha  returned  to  the  patient. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  bending  to  his  ear,  "you  are  right. 
The  doctor  is  one  of  us  ;  but  there  is  some  one  else  here 
who  is  not."  She  lowered  her  voice  so  that  only  Tinguy 
could  hear.  "And  that,"  she  added,  "is  the  young  Baron 
Michel." 

"Ah,  true,"  said  the  goodman.  "Don't  let  him  hear 
anything.  Courtin  is  a  traitor.  But  if  I  don't  go  to 
Montaigu,    who  will?  " 

"  Jean  Oullier.     Don't  worry,  Tinguy." 

"Oh!  if  Jean  Oullier  will  go,"  said  the  sick  man,  —  " if 
Jean  Oullier  will  go  I  need  not.  His  foot 's  good,  and  his 
eye  true  ;  he  can  fire  straight,  he  can  !  " 

And  he  burst  out  laughing;  but  in  that  laugh  he  seemed 
to  expend  his  last  vital  strength  and  fell  backward  on  the 
bed. 

The  young  baron  had  listened  to  this  dialogue  (of  which 
he  could  only  hear  portions)  without  in  the  least  under- 
standing it.  All  he  distinctly  made  out  was,  "  Courtin  is 
a  traitor,"  and  from  the  direction  of  the  young  girl's  eye 
as  she  spoke  with  the  peasant  he  was  certain  that  they 
were  talking  of  him.  His  heart  contracted;  they  had 
some  secret  in  which  they  would  not  let  him  share.  He 
went  up  to  Bertha. 

"Mademoiselle,"  he  said,  "if  I  am  in  your  way,  or  if 
you  have  no  further  need  of  me,  say  the  word  and  I 
retire." 

He  spoke  in  a  tone  of  so  much  pain  that  Bertha  was 
touched. 

"No,"  she  said,  "stay.  We  need  you  still;  you  must 
help  Rosine  to  prepare  M.  Roger's  prescriptions  while  I 
talk  with  him  about  the  case."  Then  to  the  doctor  she 
said,  in  a  low  voice,  "Keep  them  busy,  and  you  can  tell 
me  what  you  know,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  I  know." 
Turning  again  to  Michel  she  added,  in  her  sweetest  voice, 


106  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  I  know,  my  dear  friend,  that  you  will  be  willing  to  help 
Rosine." 

"As  long  as  you  wish,  mademoiselle;  give  your  orders 
and  I  will  obey  them,"  said  the  young  man. 

"You  see,  doctor,"  said  Bertha,  smiling,  "you  have  two 
willing  helpers." 

The  doctor  went  out  to  his  vehicle  and  returned  with  a 
bottle  of  Sedlitz  water  and  a  package  of  mustard. 

"Here,"  he  said  to  Michel,  giving  him  the  bottle, 
"uncork  that  and  make  him  drink  half  a  glassful  every 
ten  minutes.  And  you,  Rosine,"  giving  her  the  mustard, 
"mix  that  into  a  paste  with  hot  water;  it  is  to  be  put  on 
the  soles  of  your  father's  feet." 

The  sick  man  had  dropped  back  into  the  state  of  apa- 
thetic indifference  which  preceded  the  excitement  Bertha 
had  calmed  by  assuring  him  that  Jean  Oullier  would  take 
his  place.  The  doctor  cast  a  look  at  him,  and  seeing  that 
in  his  present  state  of  quiescence  he  could  safely  be  left  to 
the  care  of  the  young  baron,  he  went  eagerly  up  to  Bertha. 

"Mademoiselle  de  Souday,"  he  said,  "since  it  seems  that 
we  hold  the  same  opinions,  what  news  have  you?  " 

"  Madame  left  Massa  on  the  21st  of  last  April,  and  she 
ought  to  have  landed  at  Marseille  on  the  29th  or  30th. 
This  is  now  the  6th  of  May.  Madame  must  have  disem- 
barked, and  the  whole  South  ought  by  this  time  to  have 
risen." 

"Is  that  all  you  know?  "  asked  the  doctor. 

"Yes,  all,"  replied  Bertha. 

"You  have  not  read  the  evening  papers  of  the  3d?" 

"  We  do  not  get  any  papers  at  the  château  de  Souday,  " 
she  said. 

"Well,"  said  the  doctor,  "the  whole  thing  failed." 

"Is  it  possible!     Failed?" 

"Yes,  Madame  was  utterly  misled." 

"Good  God!  what  are  you  telling  me?  " 

"  The  exact  truth.  Madame,  after  a  prosperous  voyage 
in  the  'Carlo  Alberto,'  landed  on  the  coast  at  some  little 


NOBLESSE   OBLIGE.  1U7 

distance  from  Marseille.     A  guide  awaited  her  and  took 
her  to  a  lonely  house  in  the  woods.     Madame  had  only  six 
persons  with  her  — ■  " 
"  Oh  !  go  on  ;   go  on  !  " 

"She  sent  one  of  those  persons  to  Marseille  to  inform 
the  leader  of  the  movement  that  she  had  landed  and  was 
awaiting  the  result  of  the  promises  which  had  brought 
her  to  France  —  " 
"Well?" 

"That  evening   the  messenger  came  back  with  a  note, 
congratulating  the  princess  on  her  safe  arrival,  and  saying 
that  Marseille  would  rise  on  the  following  day  —  " 
"Yes;  what  then?" 

"The   next   day   an   attempt  was   made,  but   Marseille 
would  not  rise  at  all.     The  people  would  take  no  part  in 
the  affair,  which  failed  utterly." 
"And  Madame?" 

"It  is  not  known  where  she  is;  but  they  hope  she  re- 
embarked  on  the  'Carlo  Alberto.'  " 

"  Cowards  !  "   muttered  Bertha.     "  I  am  nothing  but  a 
woman;  but  oh!  I  swear  to   God  that  if  Madame  comes 
into  La  Vendée  I  will  set  an  example  to  some  men.     Good- 
bye, doctor,  and  thank  you." 
"Must  you  go?" 

"Yes;  it  is  important  that  my  father  should  know  this 
news.  He  is  at  a  meeting  to-night  at  the  château  de 
Montai gu.  I  must  get  back  to  Souday.  I  commit  my 
poor  patient  to  you.  Leave  exact  directions,  and  I  or  my 
sister,  unless  something  unforeseen  prevents,  will  be  here 
to-morrow  and  watch  at  night." 

"Will  you  take  my  carriage?  I  can  get  back  on  foot, 
and  you  can  return  it  by  Jean  Oullier,  or  any  one, 
to-morrow." 

"Thank  you,  no;  I  don't  know  where  Jean  Oullier  may 
be  to-morrow.  Besides,  I  prefer  walking;  the  air  will  do 
me  good." 

Bertha  held  out  her  hand  to  the  doctor,  pressed  his  with 


108  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

almost  masculine  strength,  threw  her  mantle  over  hei 
shoulders,  and  left  the  cottage.  At  the  door  she  found 
Michel,  who,  although  he  could  not  hear  the  conversation, 
had  kept  his  eye  on  the  young  girl,  and,  seeing  that  she 
was  about  to  depart,  got  to  the  door  before  her. 

"Ah!  mademoiselle,"  he  exclaimed,  "what  has  hap- 
pened?    What  have  you  just  heard?  " 

"Nothing,"  said  Bertha. 

"Nothing!  If  you  had  heard  nothing  you  would  not  be 
starting  off  in  such  a  hurry,  without  a  word  to  me,  —  with- 
out so  much  as  signing  to  me,  or  saying  good-bye." 

"  Why  should  I  say  good-bye,  inasmuch  as  you  are  going 
with  me?  When  we  reach  the  gate  of  Souday  will  be 
time  enough  to  bid  you  good-bye." 

"  What!  will  you  allow  me?" 

"To  accompany  me?  Certainly.  After  all  you  have 
done  for  me  this  evening,  it  is  your  right,  my  dear  Mon- 
sieur Michel,  — that  is,  unless  you  are  too  fatigued." 

"I,  mademoiselle,  too  fatigued,  when  it  is  a  matter  of 
accompanying  you!  With  you,  or  with  Mademoiselle 
Mary,  I  would  go  to  the  end  of  the  world.  Fatigued? 
Heavens,  no  !  " 

Bertha  smiled,  murmuring  to  herself,  "  What  a  pity  he 
is  not  one  of  us  !  "  Then  she  added  under  her  breath, 
"One  could  do  as  one  pleased  with  a  nature  like  his." 

"Are  you  speaking?"  said  Michel.  "I  did  not  quite 
catch  what  you  say." 

"I  spoke  very  low." 

"Why  do  you  speak  low?  " 

"  Because  what  I  was  saying  cannot  be  said  out  loud,  — 
not  yet,  at  least." 

"But  later?" 

"  Ah  !  later,  perhaps  —  " 

The  young  man  in  turn  moved  his  lips,  and  made  no  sound. 

"What  does  that  pantomime  mean?  "  asked  Bertha. 

"It  means  that  I  can  speak  below  my  breath  as  you  do, 
with  this  difference,  that  what  I  say  low  I  am  ready  to 


NOBLESSE    OBLIGE.  109 

say  out  loud   and  instantly,  —  at  this  very  moment  if   I 
dared  —  " 

"I  am  not  a  woman  like  other  women,"  said  Bertha, 
with  an  almost  disdainful  smile;  "and  what  is  said  to  me 
in  a  low  voice  may  equally  well  be  said  aloud." 

"Well  then,  what  I  was  saying  below  my  breath  was 
this;  I  grieve  to  see  you  flinging  yourself  into  danger,  — 
danger  as  certain  as  it  is  useless." 

"What  danger  are  you  talking  about,  my  dear  neigh- 
bor? "  said  the  girl,  in  a  slightly  mocking  tone. 

"That  about  which  you  were  speaking  to  Doctor  Eoger 
just  now.     An  uprising  is  to  take  place  in  La  Vendée." 

"Really?" 

"You  will  not  deny  that,  I  think." 

"I?  —  why  should  I  deny  it?  " 

"Your  father  and  you  are  taking  part  in  it." 

"You  forget  my  sister,"  said  Bertha,  laughing. 

"No,  I  forget  no  one,"  said  Michel,  with  a  sigh. 

"Goon." 

"  Let  me  tell  you  —  as  a  tender  friend,  a  devoted  friend 
—  that  you  are  wrong." 

"And  why  am  I  wrong,  my  tender,  my  devoted  friend," 
asked  Bertha,  with  the  tinge  of  satire  she  could  never  quite 
eliminate  from  her  nature. 

"Because  La  Vendée  is  not  in  1832  what  she  was  in 
1793;  or  rather,  because  there  is  no  longer  a  Vendée." 

"So  much  the  worse  for  La  Vendée!  But,  happily, 
there  is  always  the  Noblesse,  —  you  don't  yet  know,  Mon- 
sieur Michel,  but  your  children's  children  in  the  sixth 
generation  will  know  the  meaning  of  the  words  Noblesse 

OBLIGE." 

The  young  man  made  a  hasty  movement. 

"Now,"  said  Bertha,  "let 's  talk  of  something  else;  for 
on  this  topic  I  will  not  say  another  word,  inasmuch  as  you 
are  not  —  as  poor  Tinguy  says  —  one  of  us." 

"But,"  said  the  young  man,  hurt  by  Bertha's  tone 
toward  him,   "what  shall  we  talk  about?" 


110  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Why,  anything,  —  everything.  The  night  is  magnifi- 
cent, talk  to  me  of  the  night;  the  moon  is  brilliant,  talk 
of  the  moon;  the  stars  are  dazzling,  tell  me  about  the 
stars;  the  heavens  are  pure,  let  us  talk  of  the  heavens." 

She  raised  her  head  and  let  her  eyes  rest  on  the  clear 
and  starry  firmament.  Michel  sighed;  he  said  nothing, 
and  walked  on  beside  her.  What  could  he  say  —  that  man 
of  books  and  city  walls  —  about  the  nature  that  seemed  her 
fitting  kingdom?  Had  he,  like  Bertha,  been  in  contact 
from  his  infancy  with  the  wonders  of  creation?  Had  he 
watched,  like  her,  the  gradations  through  which  the  dawn 
ascends  and  the  sun  sinks  down?  Did  his  ear  know,  like 
hers,  the  mysterious  sounds  of  night?  When  the  lark 
rang  out  its  reveille  did  he  know  what  the  lark  was  say- 
ing? When  the  gurgle  of  the  nightingale  filled  the  dark- 
ness with  harmony  could  he  tell  what  that  throat  was 
uttering?  No,  no.  He  knew  the  things  of  science,  which 
Bertha  did  not  know;  but  Bertha  knew  the  things  of 
nature,  and  of  all  such  things  he  was  ignorant.  Oh!  if 
the  young  girl  had  only  spoken  then,  how  religiously  his 
heart  would  have  listened  to  her. 

But,  unfortunately,  she  was  silent.  Her  heart  was  full 
of  thoughts  which  escaped  in  looks  and  sighs,  and  not  in 
sounds  and  words. 

He,  too,  was  dreaming.  He  walked  beside  the  gentle 
Mary,  not  the  harsh,  firm  Bertha;  instead  of  the  self- 
reliant  Bertha,  he  felt  the  weaker  Mary  leaning  on  his 
arm.  Ah!  if  she  were  only  there  words  would  come;  all 
the  thousand  things  of  the  night  —  the  moon,  the  stars, 
the  sky  —  would  have  rushed  to  his  lips.  With  Mary  he 
would  have  been  the  teacher  and  the  master;  with  Bertha 
he  was  the  scholar  and  the  slave. 

The  two  young  people  walked  silently  side  by  side  for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  when  suddenly  Bertha 
stopped  and  made  a  sign  to  Michel  to  scop  also.  The  young 
man  obeyed;  with  Bertha  his  place  Avas  to  obey. 

"Do  you  hear?  "  said  Bertha. 


NOBLESSE   OBLIGE.  Ill 

"No,"  said  Michel,  shaking  his  head. 

"Well,  I  hear,"  she  said,  her  eyes  gleaming  and  her  ears 
alert,  as  she  strained  them  eagerly. 

"What  do  you  hear?  " 

"My  horse's  step  and  that  of  my  sister  Mary's  horse. 
They  are  coming  tor  me.  Something  must  have  hap- 
pened."    She  listened  again.     "Mary  has  come  herself." 

"How  can  you  tell  that?  "  asked  the  young  man. 

"By  the  way  the  horses  gallop.  Let  us  walk  faster, 
please." 

The  sounds  came  nearer,  and  in  less  than  five  minutes 
a  dark  group  showed  in  the  distance.  Soon  it  was  seen  to 
be  two  horses,  —  a  woman  riding  one  and  leading  the 
other. 

"I  told  you  it  was  my  sister,"  said  Bertha. 

The  young  man  had  already  recognized  her,  less  by  her 
person,  scarcely  distinguishable  in  the  darkness,  than  by 
the  beating  of  his  heart. 

Mary,  too,  had  recognized  him,  and  this  was  plain  from 
the  gesture  of  amazement  which  escaped  her.  It  was  evi- 
dent that  she  expected  to  find  her  sister  alone  or  with 
Rosine,  —  certainly  not  with  the  young  baron.  Michel 
saw  the  impression  his  presence  had  produced,  and  he 
advanced. 

"Mademoiselle,"  he  said  to  Mary,  "I  met  your  sister  on 
her  way  to  carry  assistance  to  poor  Tinguy,  and  in  order 
that  she  might  not  be  alone  I  have  accompanied  her." 

"You  did  perfectly  right,  monsieur,"  replied  Mary. 

"You  don't  understand,"  said  Bertha,  laughing.  "He 
thinks  he  must  excuse  me  or  excuse  himself.  Do  forgive 
him  for  something;  his  mamma  is  going  to  scold  him." 
Then  leaning  on  Mary's  saddle,  and  speaking  close  to  her 
ear,  "What  is  it,  darling?"  she  asked. 

"The  attempt  at  Marseille  has  failed." 

"I  know  that;  and  Madame  has  re-embarked." 

"That's  a  mistake." 

"A  mistake?" 


112  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Yes.  Madame  declares  that  as  she  is  in  France  she 
will  stay." 

"Can  it  be  true?" 

"  Yes  ;  and  she  is  now  on  her  way  to  La  Vendée,  —  in 
fact,  she  may  actually  be  here  now." 

"How  did  you  hear  all  this?" 

"  Through  a  message  received  from  her  to-night  at  the 
château  de  Montaigu,  just  as  the  meeting  was  about  to 
break  up  disheartened." 

"  Gallant  soul  !  "  cried  Bertha,  enthusiastically. 

"Papa  returned  home  at  full  gallop,  and  finding  where 
you  were,  he  told  me  to  take  the  horses  and  fetch  you." 

"  Well,  here  I  am  !  "  said  Bertha,  putting  her  foot  into 
the  stirrup. 

"Are  not  you  going  to  bid  good-bye  to  your  poor 
knight?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Bertha,  holding  out  her  hand  to  the 
young  man,  who  advanced  to  take  it  slowly  and  sadly. 

"Ah!  Mademoiselle  Bertha,"  he  murmured,  taking  her 
hand,  "I  am  very  unhappy." 

"Why?"  she  asked. 

"Not  to  be,  as  you  said  just  now,  one  of  you." 

"What  prevents  it?"  said  Mary,  holding  out  her  hand 
to  him. 

The  young  man  darted  on  that  hand  and  kissed  it  in  a 
passion  of  love  and  gratitude. 

"Oh!  yes,  yes,  yes,"  he  murmured,  so  low  that  Mary 
alone  could  hear  him;  "for  you,  mademoiselle,  and  with 
you." 

Mary's  hand  was  roughly  torn  from  his  grasp  by  a  sud- 
den movement  of  her  horse.  Bertha,  in  touching  hers, 
had  struck  that  of  her  sister  on  the  flank.  Horses  and 
riders,  starting  at  a  gallop,  were  soon  lost  like  shadows 
in  the  darkness. 

The  young  man  stood  motionless  in  the  roadway. 

"Adieu!"  cried  Bertha. 

"Au  revoir!  "  cried  Mary. 


NOBLESSE    OBLIGE.  113 

"Yes,  yes,  yes,"  he  said,  stretching  his  arms  toward 
their  vanishing  figures;   "yes,  au  revoir!  au  revoir!  " 

The  two  girls  continued  their  way  without  uttering  a 
word,  until  they  reached  the  castle  gate,  and  there  Bertha 
said,  abruptly  :  — 

"Mary,  I  know  you  will  laugh  at  me!  " 

"Why?"  asked  Mary,  trembling. 

"1  love  him!  "  replied  Bertha. 

A  cry  of  pain  had  almost  escaped  from  Mary's  lips,  but 
she  smothered  it. 

"And  I  called  to  him  'au  revoir!'"  she  whispered  to 
herself.   "God  grant  I  may  never,  never  see  him  again." 


VOL.    I.  —  8 


114  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XIII. 


A   DISTANT    COUSIN. 


The  day  after  the  events  we  have  just  related,  —  that  is  to 
say,  on  the  7th  of  May,  1832,  —  a  great  dinner-party  was 
given  at  the  château  de  Vouillé,  to  celebrate  the  birthday 
of  Madame  la  Comtesse  de  Vouillé,  who  had  on  that  day 
completed  her  twenty-fourth  year. 

The  company  had  just  sat  down  to  table,  and  at  this 
table,  among  twenty-five  other  guests,  was  the  prefect  of 
Vienne  and  the  mayor  of  Châtellerault,  relations  more  or 
less  distant  of  Madame  de  Vouillé. 

The  soup  was  just  removed  when  a  servant  entered  the 
dining-room,  and  said  a  few  words  in  Monsieur  de  Vouillé's 
ear.  Monsieur  de  Vouillé  made  the  man  repeat  them 
twice.     Then  addressing  his  guests,  he  said:  — 

"  I  beg  you  to  excuse  me  for  a  few  moments.  A  lady 
has  arrived  at  the  gate  in  a  post-chaise,  and  she  insists  on 
speaking  to  me  personally.  Will  you  allow  me  to  see 
what  this  lady  wants?" 

Permission  was,  of  course,  unanimously  granted,  though 
Madame  de  Vouillé's  eyes  followed  her  husband  to  the  door 
with  some  uneasiness. 

Monsieur  de  Vouillé  hastened  to  the  gate.  There,  sure 
enough,  was  a  post-chaise,  containing  two  persons,  a  man 
and  a  woman.  A  servant  in  sky-blue  livery  with  silver 
lace,  was  on  the  box.  When  he  saw  Monsieur  de  Vouillé, 
whom  he  seemed  to  be  expecting  impatiently,  he  jumped 
lightly  down. 

"  Come,  come,  slow  coach  !  "  he  said,  as  soon  as  the  count 
was  near  enoucrh  to  hear  him. 


A   DISTANT   COUSIN.  115 

Monsieur  de  Vouillé  stopped  short,  amazed,  —  more  than 
amazed,  stupefied.  What  manner  of  servant  was  this, 
who  dared  to  apostrophize  him  in  that  style?  He  went 
nearer  to  let  the  fellow  know  his  mind.  Then  he  stopped, 
and  burst  out  laughing. 

"What!  is  it  you,  de  Lussac?"  he  said. 

"Yes;  undoubtedly,  it  is  I." 

"What  is  all  this  masquerading  about?  " 

The  counterfeit  servant  opened  the  carriage  door  and 
offered  his  arm  to  enable  the  lady  to  get  out  of  the  chaise. 
Then  he  said  :  — 

"My  dear  count,  I  have  the  honor  to  present  you  to 
Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Berry."  Bowing  to  the  duchess, 
he  continued,  "Madame  la  duchesse,  Monsieur  le  Comte 
de  Vouillé  is  one  of  my  best  friends  and  one  of  your  most 
devoted  servants." 

The  count  retreated  a  few  steps. 

"  Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Berry  !  "  he  exclaimed, 
stupefied. 

"In  person,  monsieur,"  said  the  duchess. 

"Are  you  not  proud  and  happy  to  receive  her  Royal 
Highness?"  said  de  Lussac. 

"As  proud  and  happy  as  an  ardent  royalist  can  be; 
but  —  " 

"What!  is  there  a  but?"  asked  the  duchess. 

"This  is  my  wife's  birthday,  and  we  have  twenty-five 
guests  now  dining  with  us." 

"  Well,  monsieur,  there  is  a  French  proverb  which  says, 
'Enough  for  two  is  enough  for  three.'  I  am  sure  you  will 
extend  the  maxim  to  mean  'Enough  for  twenty-five  is 
enough  for  twenty-eight;  '  for  I  warn  you  that  Monsieur  de 
Lussac,  servant  as  he  is,  must  dine  at  table,  and  he  is 
dying  of  hunger." 

"Yes;  but  don't  be  uneasy,"  said  the  Baron  de  Lussac. 
"I  '11  take  off  my  livery." 

Monsieur  de  Vouillé  seized  his  head  with  both  hands, 
as  if  he  meant  to  tear  out  his  hair. 


116  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"What  shall  I  do?  what  can  I  do?  "  he  cried. 

"Come, ';  said  the  duchess,  "let  us  talk  sense." 

"Talk  sense!  "  said  the  count;  "how  can  I?  I  am  half 
crazy." 

"Evidently  not  with  joy,"  said  the  duchess. 

"No,  with  terror,  madame." 

"Oh!  you  exaggerate  the  situation." 

"But,  madame,  you  are  entering  the  lion's  den.  I  have 
the  prefect  of  Vienne  and  the  mayor  of  Châtellerault  at 
my  table." 

"Very  good;  then  you  will  present  them  to  me." 

"Good  God!  and  under  what  title?  " 

"That  of  a  cousin.  You  surely  have  some  distant 
cousin,   whose  name  will  answer  the  purpose." 

"What  an  idea,  madame!  " 

"Come,  put  it  to  use." 

"  I  certainly  have  a  cousin  in  Toulouse,  —  Madame  de 
la  My  re." 

"The  very  thing!     I  am  Madame  de  la  Myre." 

Then  turning  round  in  the  carriage  she  offered  her  hand 
to  an  old  man  about  sixty-live  years  of  age,  who  seemed 
waiting  till  the  discussion  ended  before  he  showed  himself. 

"Come,  Monsieur  de  la  Myre,"  said  the  duchess,  "this 
is  a  surprise  we  are  giving  our  cousin,  and  we  arrive  just 
in  time  to  keep  his  wife's  birthday.     Come,  cousin!  " 

So  saying  she  jumped  lightly  out  of  the  carriage  and 
gayly  slipped  her  arm  into  that  of  the  Comte  de  Vouillé. 

"Yes,  come!  "  said  Monsieur  de  Vouillé,  his  mind  made 
up  to  risk  the  adventure  into  which  the  duchess  was  so 
joyously  rushing.      Come!  " 

"Wait  for  me,"  cried  the  Baron  de  Lussac,  jumping  into 
the  carriage,  which  he  transformed  into  a  dressing-room, 
and  changing  his  sky-blue  livery  for  a  black  surtout  coat; 
"don't  leave  me  behind." 

"But  who  the  devil  are  you  to  be?  "  asked  M.  de  Vouillé. 

"Oh!  I'll  be  the  Baron  de  Lussac,  and  —  if  Madame 
will  permit  me  —  the  cousin  of  your  cousin." 


A   DISTANT   COUSIN.  117 

"Stop!  stop!  monsieur  le  baron,"  said  the  old  gentle- 
man, who  had  not  yet  spoken  ;  "  it  seems  to  me  that  you 
are  taking  a  great  liberty." 

"Pooh!  we  are  on  a  campaign,"  said  the  duchess;  "I 
permit  it." 

Monsieur  de  Vouillé  now  bravely  led  the  way  into  the 
dining-room.  The  curiosity  of  the  guests  and  the  uneasi- 
ness of  the  mistress  of  the  house  were  all  the  more  excited 
by  this  prolonged  absence.  So,  when  the  door  of  the 
dining-room  opened  all  eyes  turned  to  the  new  arrivals. 

Whatever  difficulties  there  may  have  been  in  playing 
the  parts  they  had  thus  unexpectedly  assumed,  none  of  the 
actors  were  at  all  disconcerted. 

"Dear, "said  the  count  to  his  wife,  "I  have  often  spoken 
to  you  of  my  cousin  in  Toulouse  —  " 

"Madame  de  la  My  re?  "  interrupted  the  countess, 
eagerly. 

"Yes,  — Madame  de  la  Myre.  She  is  on  her  way  to 
Nantes,  and  would  not  pass  the  château  without  making 
your  acquaintance.  How  fortunate  that  she  comes  on  your 
birthday!     I  hope  it  will  bring  luck  to  both." 

"  Dear  cousin  !  "  said  the  duchess,  opening  her  arms  to 
Madame  de  Vouillé. 

The  two  women  kissed  each  other.  As  for  the  two 
men  M.  de  Vouillé  contented  himself  with  saying  aloud, 
"Monsieur  de  la  Myre,"  "Monsieur  de  Lussac." 

The  company  bowed. 

"Now,"  said  M.  de  Vouillé,  "we  must  find  seats  for 
these  newcomers,  who  warn  me  that  they  are  dying  of 
hunger." 

Every  one  moved  a  little.  The  table  was  large,  and  all 
the  guests  had  plenty  of  elbow-room;  it  was  not  difficult 
therefore  to  place  three  additional  persons. 

"Did  you  not  tell  me,  my  dear  cousin,"  said  the  duchess, 
"that  the  prefect  of  Vienne  was  dining  with  you?  " 

"Yes,  madame;  and  that  is  he  whom  you  see  on  the 
countess's  right,  with  spectacles,  a  white  cravat,  and  the 


118  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

rosette  of  an  officer  of  the  Legion  of  honor  in  his  but- 
tonhole." 

"Oh!  pray  present  us." 

Monsieur  de  Vouillé  boldly  carried  on  the  comedy.  He 
felt  there  was  nothing  to  be  done  but  to  play  it  out. 
Accordingly,  he  approached  the  prefect,  who  was  majesti- 
cally leaning  back  in  his  chair. 

"Monsieur  le  préfet,"  he  said,  "this  is  my  cousin,  who, 
with  her  traditional  respect  for  authority,  thinks  that  a 
general  presentation  is  not  enough,  and  therefore  wishes 
to  be  presented  to  you  particularly." 

"Generally,  particularly,  and  officially,"  replied  the  gal- 
lant functionary,  "madame  is  and  ever  will  be  welcome." 

"I  accept  the  pledge,  monsieur,"  said  the  duchess. 

"  Madame  is  going  to  Nantes  ?  "  asked  the  prefect,  by 
way  of  making  a  remark. 

"Yes,  monsieur;  and  thence  to  Paris,  — at  least,  I  hope 
so." 

"  It  is  not,  I  presume,  the  first  time  that  Madame  visits 
the  capital?  " 

"No,  monsieur;  I  lived  there  twelve  years." 

"  And  Madame  left  it  —  " 

"Oh!  very  unwillingly,  I  assure  you." 

"Recently?" 

"Two  years  ago  last  July." 

"I  can  well  understand  that  having  once  lived  in 
Paris  —  " 

"  I  should  wish  to  return  there.  I  am  glad  you  under- 
stand that." 

"  Oh,  Paris  !  Paris  !  "  said  the  functionary. 

"  The  paradise  of  the  world  !  "  said  the  duchess. 

"Come,  take  your  seats,"  said  Monsieur  de  Vouillé. 

"Oh,  my  dear  cousin,"  said  the  duchess,  with  a  glance 
at  the  place  he  intended  for  her,  "  leave  me  beside  Mon- 
sieur le  préfet,  I  entreat  you.  He  has  just  expressed  him- 
self with  so  much  feeling  about  the  thing  I  have  most  at 
heart  that  I  place  him,  at  once,  on  my  list  of  friends." 


A    DISTANT    COUSIN.  119 

The  prefect,  delighted  with  the  compliment,  drew  aside 
his  chair,  and  Madame  was  installed  in  the  seat  to  his 
left,  to  the  detriment  of  the  person  to  whom  that  place  of 
honor  had  been  assigned.  The  two  men  accepted  without 
objection  the  seats  given  to  them,  and  were  soon  busy  — 
M.  de  Lussac  especially  —  in  doing  justice  to  the  repast. 
The  other  guests  followed  their  example,  and  for  a  time 
nothing  broke  the  solemn  silence  which  attends  the  begin- 
ning of  a  long-delayed  and  impatiently  awaited  dinner. 

Madame  was  the  first  to  break  that  silence.  Her  ad- 
venturous spirit,  like  the  petrel,  was  more  at  ease  in  a 
gale. 

"Well,"  she  remarked,  "I  think  our  arrival  must  have 
interrupted  the  conversation.  Nothing  is  so  depressing  as 
a  silent  dinner.  I  detest  such  dinners,  my  dear  count; 
they  are  like  those  state  functions  at  the  Tuileries,  where, 
they  tell  me,,  no  one  was  allowed  to  speak  unless  the  king 
had  spoken.  What  were  you  all  talking  about  before  we 
came  in?  " 

"Dear  cousin,"  said  M.  de  Vouillé,  "the  prefect  was 
kindly  giving  us  the  official  details  of  that  blundering 
affair  at  Marseille." 

"Blundering  affair?"  said  the  duchess. 

"That's  what  he  called  it." 

"And  the  words  exactly  describe  the  thing,"  said  the 
functionary.  "  Can  you  conceive  of  an  expedition  of  that 
character  for  which  the  arrangements  were  so  carelessly 
made  that  it  only  required  a  sub-lieutenant  of  the  13th 
regiment  to  arrest  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  outbreak  and 
knock  the  whole  affair  in  the  head  at  once?  " 

"But  don't  you  know,  Monsieur  le  préfet,"  said  the 
duchess,  in  a  melancholy  tone,  "  in  all  great  events  there 
is  a  moment,  a  supreme  moment,  when  the  destinies  of 
princes  and  empires  are  shaken  like  leaves  in  the  wind? 
For  example,  when  Napoleon  at  La  Mure  advanced  to  meet 
the  soldiers  who  were  sent  against  him,  if  a  sub-lieutenant 
of  any  kind  had  taken  him  by  the  collar  the  return  from 


120  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

Elba  would  have  been  nothing  more  than  a  blundering 
affair:' 

There  was  silence  after  that,  Madame  having  said  the 
words  in  a  grieved  tone.  She  herself  re-opened  the 
matter. 

"And  the  Duchesse  de  Berry?"  she  said;  "is  it  known 
what  became  of  her?  " 

"She  returned  on  board  of  the  'Carlo  Alberto.'  ' 

"Ah!" 

"  It  was  the  only  sensible  thing  she  could  do,  it  seems 
to  me,"  said  the  prefect. 

"You  are  quite  right,  monsieur,"  said  the  old  gentle- 
man, who  had  accompanied  Madame,  and  who  had  not 
before  spoken;  "and  if  I  had  had  the  honor  to  be  near  her 
Highness  and  she  had  granted  me  some  authority,  I  should 
have  given  her  that  advice." 

"No  one  was  addressing  you,  my  good  husband,"  said 
the  duchess.  "I  am  speaking  to  the  prefect,  and  I  want  to 
know  if  he  is  quite  sure  her  Royal  Highness  has  re- 
embarked?  " 

"Madame,"  said  the  prefect,  with  one  of  those  admin- 
istrative gestures  which  admit  of  no  contradiction,  "the 
government  is  officially  informed  of  it." 

"  Ah  !  "  exclaimed  the  duchess,  "  if  the  government  is  offi- 
cially informed  of  it,  of  course  there  is  nothing  to  be  said; 
but,"  she  added,  venturing  on  still  more  slippery  ground, 
"I  did  hear  differently." 

"  Madame  !  "  said  the  old  gentleman,  in  a  tone  of  slight 
reproach. 

"What  did  you  hear,  cousin?"  asked  M.  de  Veuille,  who 
was  beginning  to  take  the  interest  of  a  gambler  in  the 
game  that  was  being  played  before  him. 

"Yes,  what  have  you  heard,  madame?"  said  the  prefect. 

"Oh,  you  understand,  Monsieur  le  préfet,  that  it  is  not 
for  me  to  give  you  official  news,"  said  the  duchess.  "I 
am  only  telling  you  of  rumors,  which  may  be  mere 
nonsense." 


A   DISTANT   COUSIN.  121 

"  Madame  de  la  Myre  !  "  said  the  old  man. 

"Well,  Monsieur  de  la  Myre?  "  said  the  duchess. 

"Do  you  know,  madame,"  said  the  prefect,  "that  1  think 
your  husband  is  very  interfering.  I  will  wager  it  is  he 
who  does  not  want  you  to  go  to  Paris?  " 

"  That  is  precisely  true.  But  I  hope  to  go  there  in  spite 
of  him.     'AVhat  woman  wills,  God  wills.'  " 

"  Oh,  women  !  women  !  "  cried  the  public  functionary. 

"  What  now?  "  asked  the  duchess. 

"Nothing,"  said  the  prefect.  "I  am  waiting,  Madame, 
to  hear  the  rumors  you  mentioned  just  now  about  the 
Duchesse  de  Berry." 

"Oh!  they  are  simple  enough.  I  heard, — but  pray 
remember  I  give  them  on  no  authority  but  common  report, 
—  I  have  heard  that  the  Duchesse  de  Berry  rejected  the 
advice  of  all  her  friends,  and  obstinately  refused  to  re- 
embark  on  the  'Carlo  Alberto.'" 

"Then  where  is  she  now?  "  asked  the  prefect. 

"In  France." 

"In  France!     What  can  she  do  in  France?  " 

"Why,  you  know  very  well,  Monsieur  le  préfet,"  said 
the  duchess,  "that  her  Royal  Highness's  chief  object  is 
La  Vendée." 

"No  doubt;  but  having  failed  so  signally  at  the 
South  —  " 

"All  the  more  reason  why  she  should  try  for  success  at 
the  West." 

The  prefect  smiled  disdainfully. 

"Then  you  really  think  she  has  re-embarked?"  asked 
the  duchess. 

"I  can  positively  assure  you,"  said  the  prefect,  "that 
she  is  at  this  moment  in  the  dominions  of  the  king  of 
Sardinia,  from  whom  France  is  about  to  ask  an  explana- 
tion." 

"Poor  king  of  Sardinia!  He  will  give  a  very  simple 
one." 

"What?" 


122  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"He  will  say,  'I  always  knew  Madame  was  a  crazy 
creature  ;  but  I  never  thought  her  craziness  would  lead  her 
quite  as  far  as  this — '  " 

"  Madame  !  madame  !  "  said  the  old  man. 

"Ah,  ça!  Monsieur  de  la  Myre,"  said  the  duchess,  "I 
do  hope  that  although  you  interfere  with  my  wishes,  you 
will  have  the  grace  to  respect  my  opinions,  —  all  the  more 
because  I  am  sure  they  are  those  of  Monsieur  le  préfet. 
Are  they  not,  monsieur?  " 

"The  truth  is,"  said  that  functionary,  laughing,  "that 
her  Royal  Highness  has  behaved  in  this  whole  affair  with 
the  utmost  folly." 

"There!  you  see,"  said  the  duchess.  "What  would  hap- 
pen, Monsieur  le  préfet,  if  these  rumors  were  true  and 
Madame  should  really  come  to  La  Vendée  ?  " 

"How  can  she  get  here?  "  asked  the  prefect. 

"  Why,  through  the  neighboring  departments,  or  through 
yours.  They  tell  me  she  was  seen  at  Toulouse  in  an  open 
carriage  while  changing  horses." 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  cried  the  prefect  ;  "  that  would  be  a 
little  too  bold." 

"  So  bold  that  Monsieur  le  préfet  does  n't  believe  it?  " 

"Not  one  word  of  it,"  said  the  official  emphasizing  each 
monosyllable  as  he  uttered  it. 

At  that  moment  the  door  opened,  and  one  of  the  count's 
footmen  announced  that  a  clerk  from  the  prefecture  asked 
permission  to  deliver  a  telegraphic  despatch  just  received 
from  Paris  for  the  prefect. 

"Will  you  permit  him  to  enter?"  said  the  prefect  to  the 
count. 

"Why,  of  course,"  said  the  latter. 

The  clerk  entered  and  gave  a  sealed  package  to  the  pre- 
fect, who  bowed  his  excuses  to  the  company  for  opening 
it. 

Absolute  silence  reigned.  All  eyes  were  fixed  on  the 
despatch.  Madame  exchanged  signs  with  M.  de  Vouillé, 
who  laughed  under  his  breath,  with  M.  de  Lussac,  who 


A   DISTANT   COUSIN.  123 

laughed  aloud,  and  with  her  so-called  husband  who  main- 
tained his  iniperturbably  grave  manner. 

"  Whew  !  "  cried  the  public  functionary  suddenly,  while 
his  features  were  indiscreet  enough  to  betray  the  utmost 
surprise. 

"What  is  the  news?  "  asked  M.  de  Vouillé. 

"The  news  is,"  exclaimed  the  prefect,  "that  Madame  de 
la  Myre  was  right  in  what  she  said  about  her  Royal  High- 
ness. Her  Royal  Highness  has  not  left  France;  her 
Royal  Highness  is  on  her  way  to  La  Vendée,  through 
Toulouse,  Libourne,  and  Poitiers." 

So  saying,  the  prefect  rose. 

"  Where  are  you  going,  Monsieur  le  préfet?  "  asked  the 
duchess. 

"To  do  my  duty,  madame,  painful  as  it  is,  and  give 
orders  that  her  Royal  Highness  be  arrested  if,  as  this 
despatch  warns  me,  she  is  imprudent  enough  to  pass 
through  my  department." 

"Do  so,  Monsieur  le  préfet;  do  so,"  said  the  duchess. 
"  I  can  only  applaud  your  zeal  and  assure  you  that  I  shall 
remember  it  when  occasion  offers." 

She  held  out  her  hand  to  the  prefect,  who  kissed  it  gal- 
lantly, after  having,  with  a  look,  asked  Monsieur  de  la 
Myre' s  permission  to  do  so. 


124  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XIV. 

.     PETIT-PIERRE. 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  cottage  of  the  goodman  Tin  guy, 
which  we  left  for  a  time  to  make  that  excursion  to  the 
château  de  Vouillé. 

Forty-eight  hours  have  gone  by.  Bertha  and  Michel  are 
again  at  the  sick  man's  bedside.  Though  the  regular 
visits  which  Doctor  Roger  now  paid  rendered  the  young 
girl's  presence  in  that  fever-stricken  place  unnecessary, 
Bertha,  in  spite  of  Mary's  remonstrances,  persisted  in  her 
care  of  the  Vendéan  peasant.  Nevertheless,  it  is  probable 
that  Christian  charity  was  not  the  only  motive  which  drew 
her  to  his  cottage. 

However  that  may  be,  it  is  certain  that,  by  natural  coin- 
cidence, Michel,  who  had  got  over  his  terrors,  was  already 
installed  in  the  cottage  when  Bertha  got  there.  Was  it 
Bertha  for  whom  Michel  was  looking?  We  dare  not 
answer.  Perhaps  he  thought  that  Mary,  too,  might  take 
her  turn  in  these  charitable  functions.  Perhaps,  too,  he 
may  have  hoped  that  the  fair-haired  sister  would  not  lose 
this  occasion  of  meeting  him,  after  the  warmth  of  their 
last  parting.  His  heart  therefore  beat  violently  when  he 
saw  the  shadow  of  a  woman's  form,  which  he  knew  by  its 
elegance  could  belong  only  to  a  Demoiselle  de  Souday, 
projecting  itself  upon  the  cottage  door. 

When  he  recognized  Bertha  the  young  man  felt  a  meas- 
ure of  disappointed  hope;  but  as.  by  virtue  of  his  love,  he 
was  full  of  tenderness  for  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  of  sym- 
pathy for  the  crabbed  Jean  Oullier,  and  of  benevolence  for 
even  their  dogs,  how  could  he  fail  to  love  Mary's  sister? 


PETIT-PIERRE.  125 

The  affection  shown  to  one  would  certainly  bring  him 
nearer  to  the  other;  besides,  what  happiness  to  hear  this 
sister  mention  the  absent  sister.  Consequently,  he  was 
full  of  attentions  and  solicitude  for  Bertha,  who  accepted 
all  with  a  satisfaction  she  took  no  pains  to  conceal. 

It  was  difficult,  however,  to  think  of  other  matters  than 
the  condition  of  the  sick  man,  which  was  hourly  growing 
worse  and  worse.  He  had  fallen  into  that  state  of  torpor 
and  insensibility  which  physicians  call  coma,  and  whieh, 
in  inflammatory  diseases,  usually  characterizes  the  period 
preceding  death.  He  no  longer  noticed  what  was  passing 
around  him,  and  answered  only  when  distinctly  spoken  to. 
The  pupils  of  his  eyes,  which  were  frightfully  dilated, 
were  fixed  and  staring.  He  was  almost  rigid,  though  from 
time  to  time  his  hands  endeavored  to  pull  the  coverlet  over 
his  face,  or  draw  to  him  something  that  he  seemed  to  see 
beside  his  bed. 

Bertha,  who,  in  spite  of  her  youth,  had  more  than  once 
been  present  at  such  a  scene,  no  longer  felt  any  hope  for 
the  poor  man's  life.  She  wished  to  spare  Rosine  the 
anguish  of  witnessing  her  father's  death-struggle,  which 
she  knew  was  beginning,  and  she  told  her  to  go  at  once 
and  fetch  Doctor  Roger. 

"But  I  can  go,  mademoiselle,  if  you  like,"  said  Michel. 
"  I  have  better  legs  than  Rosine.  Besides,  it  is  n't  safe 
for  her  to  go  through  those  roads  at  night." 

"No,  Monsieur  Michel,  there  is  no  danger  for  Rosine, 
and  I  have  my  own  reasons  for  keeping  you  here.  I  hope 
it  is  not  disagreeable  to  you  to  remain?  " 

"Oh,  mademoiselle,  how  can  you  think  it?  Only  I  am 
so  happy  in  being  able  to  serve  you  that  I  try  to  let  no 
occasion  pass." 

"Don't  be  anxious  about  that,"  said  Bertha,  smiling; 
"perhaps,  before  long,  I  shall  have  more  than  one  occasion 
to  put  your  devotion  to  the  proof." 

Rosine  had  hardly  been  gone  ten  minutes  before  the 
sick   man   seemed    suddenly   and    extraordinarily    better. 


126  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

His  eyes  lost  their  fixed  stave,  Lis  breathing  became  easier, 
his  rigid  fingers  relaxed,  and  he  passed  them  over  his  fore- 
head to  wipe  away  the  sweat  which  began  to  pour  from  it. 

"How  do  you  feel,  dear  Tinguy?  "  said  the  girl. 

"Better,"  he  answered,  in  a  feeble  voice.  "The  good 
God  doesn't  mean  me  to  desert  before  the  battle,"  he 
added,  trying  to  smile. 

"Perhaps  not;  because  it  is  for  him  you  are  going  to 
fight." 

The  peasant  shook  his  head  sadly  and  sighed. 

"Monsieur  Michel,"  said  Bertha  to  the  young  man, 
drawing  him  into  a  corner  of  the  room,  so  that  her  voice 
should  not  reach  the  patient,  "  go  and  fetch  the  vicar  and 
rouse  the  neighbors." 

"  Is  n't  he  better?     He  said  so  just  now." 

" Child  that  you  are!  Did  you  never  see  a  lamp  go  out? 
The  last  flame  is  brightest,  and  so  it  is  with  our  miserable 
bodies.  Go  at  once.  There  will  be  no  death-struggle. 
The  fever  has  exhausted  him;  the  soul  is  going  without  a 
struggle,  shock,  or  effort." 

"And  are  you  to  be  left  alone  with  him? " 

"Go  at  once,  and  don't  think  about  me." 

Michel  went  out,  and  Bertha  returned  to  Tinguy,  who 
held  out  his  hand. 

"Thank  you,  my  brave  young  lady,"  said  the  peasant. 

"Thank  me  for  what,  père  Tinguy?  " 

"  For  your  care,  and  also  for  thinking  of  sending  for  the 
vicar.  " 

"You  heard  me?  " 

This  time  Tinguy  smiled  outright. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "low  as  you  spoke." 

"But  you  must  n't  think  that  the  presence  of  the  priest 
means  that  you  are  going  to  die,  my  good  Tinguy.  Don't 
be  frightened." 

"Frightened!  "  cried  the  peasant,  trying  to  sit  up  in  his 
bed.  "Frightened!  why?  I  have  respected  the  old  and 
cared  for  the  young;  I  have  suffered  without  a  murmur;  I 


PETIT-PIERKE.  127 

have  toiled  without  complaining,  praising  God  when  the 
hail  beat  down  ni3r  wheat  and  the  harvest  failed;  never 
have  I  turned  away  the  beggar  whom  Sainte-Anne  has  sent 
to  my  fireside;  I  have  kept  the  commandments  of  God  and 
of  the  Church;  when  the  priests  said,  'Rise  and  take  your 
guns,'  I  fought  the  enemies  of  my  faith  and  my  king;  I 
have  been  humble  in  victory  and  hopeful  in  defeat;  I  was 
still  ready  to  give  my  life  for  the  sacred  cause,  and  shall 
I  be  frightened  now?  Oh,  no!  mademoiselle;  this  is  the 
day  of  days  to  us  poor  Christians,  —  the  glorious  day  of 
death.  Ignorant  as  I  am,  I  know  that  this  day  makes  us 
equals  with  the  great  and  prosperous  of  the  earth.  It  has 
come  for  me;  God  calls  me  to  him.  I  am  ready;  I  go 
before  his  judgment-seat  in  full  assurance  of  his  mercy." 

Tinguy's  face  was  illuminated  as  he  said  the  words;  but 
this  last  religious  enthusiasm  exhausted  the  poor  man's 
strength.  He  fell  heavily  back  upon  his  pillow,  muttering 
a  few  unintelligible  words,  among  which  could  be  distin- 
guished "blues,"  "parish,"  and  the  names  of  God  and  the 
Virgin. 

The  vicar  entered  at  this  moment.  Bertha  showed  him 
the  sick  man,  and  the  priest,  understanding  what  she 
wanted  of  him,  began  at  once  the  prayer  for  the  dying. 

Michel  begged  Bertha  to  leave  the  room,  and  the  young 
girl  consenting,  they  both  went  out  after  saying  a  last 
prayer  at  Tinguy's  bedside. 

One  after  the  other,  the  neighbors  came  in;  each  knelt 
down  and  repeated  after  the  priest  the  litanies  of  death. 
Two  slender  candles  of  yellow  wax,  placed  on  either  side 
of  a  brass  crucifix,  lighted  the  gloomy  scene. 

Suddenly,  at  the  moment  when  the  priest  and  the  assis- 
tants were  reciting  mentally  the  "Ave  Maria!"  an  owl's 
cry,  sounding  not  far  distant  from  the  cottage,  rose  above 
the  dull  hum  of  their  mutterings.     The  peasants  trembled. 

At  the  sound  the  dying  man,  whose  eyes  were  already 
glazing  and  his  breath  hissing,  raised  his  head. 

"I'm  here!  "  he  cried;  "I  'm  ready!     I  am  the  guide." 


128  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

Then  he  tried  to  imitate  the  owl's  cry  in  reply  to  the 
one  he  had  heard,  but  he  could  not.  The  lingering  breath 
gave  a  sob,  his  head  fell  back,  his  eyes  opened  widely. 
He  was  dead. 

A  stranger  stood  on  the  threshold  of  the  door.  He  was 
a  young  Breton  peasant,  wearing  a  broad-brimmed  hat,  a 
red  waistcoat  and  silver  buttons,  a  blue  jacket  embroidered 
Nvith  red,  and  high  leather  gaiters.  He  carried  in  his 
hand  one  of  those  sticks  with  iron  points,  which  the  coun- 
try people  use  when  they  make  a  journey. 

He  seemed  surprised  at  the  scene  before  his  eyes  ;  but 
he  asked  no  question  of  any  one.  He  quietly  knelt  down 
and  prayed;  then  he  approached  the  bed,  looked  earnestly 
at  the  pale,  discolored  face  of  the  poor  peasant.  Two 
heavy  tears  rolled  down  his  cheeks  ;  he  wiped  them  away, 
and  went  out  as  he  had  come,  silently. 

The  peasants,  used  to  the  religious  custom  which  expects 
all  those  who  pass  the  house  of  death  to  enter  and  say  a 
prayer  for  the  soul  of  the  dying  and  a  blessing  on  the  body, 
were  not  surprised  at  the  presence  of  a  stranger,  and  paid 
no  heed  to  his  departure.  The  latter,  on  leaving  the  cot- 
tage, met  another  peasant,  younger  and  smaller  than  him- 
self, who  seemed  to  be  his  brother;  this  one  was  riding  a 
horse  saddled  and  In-idled  in  peasant  fashion. 

"Well,  Rameau-d'or,"  said  the  younger,  "what  is  it?" 

"This,"  replied  lac  other:  "there  is  no  place  for  us  in 
that  house.     A  guest  is  there  whose  presence  fills  it." 

"  Who  is  he?  " 

"Death." 

"Who  is  dead?" 

"He  whose  hospitality  we  came  to  ask.  I  would  sug- 
gest to  you  to  make  a  shield  of  his  death  and  stay  here; 
but  I  heard  some  one  say  that  Tinguy  died  of  typhoid 
lever,  and  though  doctors  deny  the  contagion,  I  cannot 
consent  to  expose  you  to  it." 

"  You  are  not  afraid  that  you  were  seen  and  recognized?" 

"No,  impossible.     There  were  eight  or  ten  persons,  men 


PETIT- PI  ERRE. 

and  women,  praying  round  the  bed.  1  went  in  and  km  It 
down  and  prayed  with  them.  That  is  what  all  lîreton  and 
Vendéan  peasants  do  in  such  cases." 

"  Well,  what  can  we  do  now?  "  asked  the  younger  of  the 
two. 

"  I  have  already  told  you.  We  had  to  decide'  between 
the  château  of  my  former  comrade  or  the  cottage  of  the 
poor  fellow  who  was  to  have  been  our  guide,  —  between 
luxury  and  a  princely  house  with  poor  security,  and  a  nar- 
row cottage,  bad  beds,  buckwheat  bread,  and  absoli 
safety.  God  himself  has  decided  the  matter.  We  have 
no  choice;  we  must  take  the  insecure  comfort." 

"  But  you  think  the  chateau  is  not  safe?  " 

"  The  château  belongs  to  a  friend  of  my  childhood,  whose 
father  was  made  a  baron  by  the  Restoration.  The  father 
is  dead,  and  the  widow  and  son  are  now  living  in  the 
château.  If  the  son  were  alone,  I  should  have  no  anxiety. 
He  is  rather  weak,  but  his  heart  is  sound.  It  is  his 
mother  I  fear;  she  is  selfish  and  ambitious,  and  I  could 
not  trust  her." 

"  Oh,  pooh  !  just  for  one  night  !  You  are  not  adventu- 
rous, Rameau-d'or." 

"  Yes  I  am,  on  my  own  account  ;  but  I  am  answerable  to 
France,  or  at  any  rate,  to  my  party  for  the  life  of  Ma  —  " 

"  For  Petit-Pierre.  Ah,  Rameau-d'or,  that  is  the  tenth 
forfeit  you  owe  me  since  we  started." 

"It  shall  be  the  last,  Ma  —  Petit-Pierre,  I  should  say. 
In  future  I  will  think  of  you  by  no  other  name,  and  in  no 
other  relation  than  that  of  my  brother." 

"  Come,  then;  let  us  go  to  the  château.  I  am  so  weary 
that  I  would  ask  shelter  of  an  ogress,  —  if  there  were 
any." 

"  We  '11  take  a  crossroad,  which  will  carry  us  there  in 
ten  minutes,"  said  the  young  man.  "Seat  yourself  more 
comfortably  in  the  saddle;  I  will  walk  before  yon,  and 
you  must  follow  me  ;  otherwise  we  might  miss  the  path, 
which  is  very  faint." 

VOL.    I.  —  9 


130  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Wait  a  moment, "  said  Petit-Pierre,  slipping  from  his 
horse. 

"  Where  are  you  going?"  asked  Rameau-d'or,  anxiously. 

"  You  said  your  prayer  beside  that  j»oor  peasant,  and  I 
want  to  say  mine." 

"Don't  think  of  it!" 

"  Yes,  yes;  he  was  a  brave  and  honest  man,"  persisted 
Petit-Pierre.  "He  would  have  risked  his  life  for  us;  I 
may  well  offer  a  little  prayer  beside  his  body." 

Rameau-d'or  raised  his  hat  and  stood  aside  to  let  his 
young  companion  pass. 

The  lad,  like  Rameau-d'or,  entered  the  cottage,  took  a 
branch  of  holly,  dipped  it  in  holy  water,  and  sprinkled  the 
body  with  it.  Then  he  knelt  down  and  prayed  at  the  foot 
of  the  bed,  after  which  he  left  the  cottage,  without  excit- 
ing more  attention  than  his  companion  had  done. 

The  elder  helped  Petit-Pierre  to  mount,  and  together, 
one  in  the  saddle,  the  other  on  foot,  they  took  their  way 
silently  across  the  fields  and  along  an  almost  invisible 
path  which  led,  as  we  have  said,  in  a  straight  line  to  the 
château  de  la  Logerie.  They  had  hardly  gone  a  hundred 
steps  into  the  grounds  when  Rameau-d'or  stopped  short 
and  laid  his  hand  on  the  bridle  of  the  horse. 

"  WThat  is  it  now?  "  asked  Petit-Pierre. 

"  I  hear  steps,"  said  the  young  man.  "  Draw  in  behind 
those  bushes  ;  I  will  stand  against  this  tree.  They  '11 
probably  pass  without  seeing  us." 

The  manœuvre  was  made  with  the  rapidity  of  a  military 
evolution,  and  none  too  soon;  for  the  new-comer  was  seen 
to  emerge  from  the  darkness  as  the  pair  reached  their 
prats.  Rameau-d'or,  whose  eyes  were  by  this  time  accus- 
tomed to  the  dim  light,  saw  at  once  that  he  was  a  young 
man  about  twenty  years  of  age,  running,  rather  than  walk- 
ing, in  the  same  direction  as  themselves.  He  had  his  hat 
in  his  hand,  which  made  him  the  more  easily  recognized, 
and  his  hair,  blown  back  by  the  wind,  left  his  face  entirely 
exposed. 


PETIT-PIERRE.  131 

An  exclamation  of  surprise  burst  from  Rameau-d'or,  as 
the  young  man  came  close  to  him;  then  he  hesitated  a 
minute,  still  in  doubt,  and  allowed  the  other  to  pass  him 
by  three  or  four  steps,  before  he  cried  out  :  — 

"Michel!" 

The  new-comer,  who  did  not  expect  to  hear  his  name 
called  in  that  lonely  place,  jumped  to  one  side,  and  said  in 
a  voice  that  quivered  with  emotion  :  — 

"Who  called  me?" 

"I,"  said  Bameau-d'or,  taking  off  his  hat  and  a  wig  he 
had  been  wearing,  and  advancing  to  his  friend  with  no 
other  disguise  than  his  Breton  clothes. 

"  Henri  de  Bonneville  !  "  exclaimed  Baron  Michel,  in 
amazement. 

"  Myself.  But  don't  say  my  name  so  loud.  We  are  in 
a  land  where  every  bush  and  ditch  and  tree  shares  with  the 
walls  the  privilege  of  having  ears." 

"True!"  said  Michel,  alarmed;  "  and  besides  —  " 

"  Besides  what?  "  asked  M.  de  Bonneville. 

"  You  must  have  come  for  the  uprising  they  talk  of?  " 

"  Precisely.  And  now,  in  two  words,  on  which  side  are 
you?  " 

"  I?  " 

"  Yes,  you." 

"My  good  friend,"  said  the  young  baron,  "I  have  no 
fixed  opinions;  though  I  will  admit  in  a  whisper  —  " 

"  Whisper  as  much  as  you  like;  admit  what?  Make 
haste." 

"  Well,  I  will  admit  that  I  incline  toward  Henri  V." 

"My  dear  Michel. "'  cried  the  count,  gayly,  "if  you 
incline  toward  Henri  Y.  that  *s  enough  for  me." 

"  Stop;  I  don't  say  that  1  am  positively  decided." 

"So  much  the  better.  I  shall  finish  your  conversion; 
and,  in  order  that  I  may  do  so  at  once,  I  shall  ask  you  to 
take  me  in  for  the  night  at  your  chateau,  and  also  a  friend 
who  accompanies  me." 

"  Where  is  your  friend?  "  asked  Michel. 


132  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Here  lie  is,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  riding  forward,  and 
bowing  to  the  young  baron,  with  an  ease  and  grace  that  con- 
trasted curiously  with  the  dress  he  wore.  Michel  looked 
at  the  little  peasant  for  a  moment,  and  then  approaching 
Bonneville,  he  said  :  — 

"  Henri,  what  is  your  friend's  name?/' 

"  Michel,  you  are  lacking  in  all  the  traditions  of  hos- 
pitality. You  forget  the  'Odyssey,'  my  dear  fellow,  and 
I  am  distressed  at  you.  Why  do  you  want  to  know  my 
friend's  name?  Is  n't  it  enough  if  I  tell  you  he  is  a  man 
of  good  birth?  " 

"  Are  you  sure  he  is  a  man  at  all?  " 

The  count  and  Petit-Pierre  burst  out  laughing. 

"  So  you  insist  on  knowing  the  names  of  those  you  receive 
in  your  house?  " 

"  Not  for  my  sake,  my  dear  Henri,  —  not  for  mine,  I 
swear  to  you  ;  but  in  the  château  de  la  Logerie  —  " 

"  Well?  —  in  the  château  de  la  Logerie?  " 

"  I  am  not  master." 

"Oh!  then  the  Baronne  Michel  is  mistress.  I  had 
already  told  my  little  friend  Petit-Pierre  that  she  might 
be.  But  it  is  only  for  one  night.  You  could  take  us  to 
your  own  room,  and  I  can  forage  in  the  cellar  and  larder. 
I  know  the  way.  My  young  friend  could  get  a  night's  rest 
on  your  bed,  and  early  in  the  morning  I  '11  find  a  better 
place  and  relieve  you  of  our  presence." 

"  Impossible,  Henri.  Do  not  think  that  it  is  for  myself, 
I  fear;  but  it  will  compromise  your  safety  to  let  you  even 
enter  the  château." 

"How  so?" 

"My  mother  is  still  awake;  I  am  sure  of  it.  She  is 
watching  forme;  she  would  see  us  enter.  Your  disguise 
we  might  find  some  reason  for;  but  that  of  your  compan- 
ion, which  has  not  escaped  me,  how  could  we  explain  it  to 
lier?  " 

"  He  is  right,"  said  Petit-Pierre. 

"  But  what  else  can  we  do?  " 


PETIT-PIERKE.  1.»., 

"And,"  continued  Michel,  "it  is  not  only  my  mother 
that  I  fear,  but  —  " 

"  What  else?  " 

"Wait!"  said  the  baron,  looking  uneasily  about  him; 
"  let  us  get  away  from  these  bushes." 

"The  devil!" 

"  I  mean  Courtin." 

"Courtin?     Who  is  he?  " 

"Don't  you  remember  Courtin  the  farmer? " 

"  Oh  !  yes,  to  be  sure,  —  a  good  sort  of  fellow,  who  was 
always  on  your  side,  even  against  your  mother." 

"Yes.  Well,  Courtin  is  now  mayor  of  the  village  and 
a  violent  Philippist.  If  he  found  you  wandering  about,  at 
night  in  disguise  he  would  arrest  you  without  a  warrant." 

"This  is  serious,"  said  Henri  de  Bonneville,  gravely. 
"What  does  Petit-Pierre  think  of  it?" 

"I  think  nothing,  my  dear  Bameau-d'or;  I  leave  you  to 
think  for  me." 

"The  result  is  that  you  close  your  doors  to  us?"  said 
Bonneville. 

"That  won't  signify  to  you,"  said  Baron  Michel,  whose 
eyes  suddenly  lighted  up  with  a  personal  hope,  —  "  it  won't 
signify,  for  I  will  get  you  admitted  to  another  house, 
where  you  will  be  in  far  greater  safety  than  at  La 
Logerie." 

"Not  signify!  but  it  does  signify.  What  says  my 
companion?  " 

"I  say  that  provided  some  door  opens,  I  don't  care  where 
it  is.     I  am  ready  to  drop  with  fatigue,  I  am  so  tired." 

"  Then  follow  me,  "  said  the  baron. 

"Is  it  far?" 

"An  hour's  walk,  — about  three  miles." 

"Has  Petit-Pierre  the  strength  for  it?  "  asked  Henri. 

"Petit-Pierre  will  find  strength  for  it,"  said  the  little 
peasant,  laughing. 

"Then  let  us  follow  Baron  Michel,"  said  Bonneville. 
"  Forward,   baron  !  " 


134  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

And  the  little  group,  which  had  been  at  a  standstill  for 
the  last  ten  minutes,  moved  away.  But  they  had  hardly 
gone  a  few  hundred  steps  before  Bonneville  laid  a  hand  on 
Michel's  shoulder. 

"Where  are  you  taking  us?  "  he  said. 

"Don't  be  uneasy." 

"I  will  follow  you,  provided  you  can  promise  me  a  good 
bed  and  a  good  supper  for  Petit-Pierre,  who,  as  you  see,  is 
rather  delicate." 

"  He  shall  have  all  and  more  than  I  could  give  him  at 
La  Logerie,  — the  best  food  in  the  larder,  the  best  wine  in 
the  cellar,  the  best  bed  in  the  castle." 

On  they  went.  At  the  end  of  some  little  time  Michel 
said  suddenly  :  — 

"I'll  go  forward  now,  so  that  you  may  not  have  to 
wait." 

"One  moment,"  said  Henri.     "Where  are  we  going?" 

"To  the  château  de  Souday." 

"  The  château  de  Souday  !  " 

"Yes;  you  know  it  very  well,  with  its  pointed  towers 
roofed  with  slate,  on  the  left  of  the  road  opposite  to  the 
forest  of  Machecoul." 

"The  wolves'  castle?" 

"Yes,  the  wolves'  castle,  if  you  choose  to  call  it  so." 

"Is  that  where  we  are  to  stay?  " 

"Yes." 

"Have  you  sufficiently  reflected,  Michel?" 

"Yes,  yes;  I  will  answer  for  everything." 

The  baron  waited  to  say  no  more,  but  set  off  instantly 
for  the  castle,  with  that  velocity  of  which  he  had  given 
such  unmistakable  proof  on  the  night  when  he  went  to 
fetch  the  doctor  to  the  dying  Tinguy. 

"Well,"  asked  Petit-Pierre,  "what  shall  we  do?" 

"There  is  no  choice  now  but  to  follow  him." 

"To  the  wolves'  castle?  " 

"Yes,  to  the  wolves'  castle." 

"So   be  it;  but  to   enliven  the  way,"  said  the  little 


« 

D 
O 
CO 


O 


fc^^Liifci 


PETIT-PIERRE.  135 

peasant,  "will  you  be  good  enough  to  tell  me,  my  dear 
Rameau-d'or,  who  the  wolves  are?" 

"1  will  tell  you  what  I  have  heard  of  them." 

"I  can't  expect  more." 

Resting  his  hand  on  the  pommel  of  the  saddle,  the 
Comte  de  Bonneville  related  to  Petit-Pierre  the  sort  of 
legend  attaching,  throughout  the  department  of  the  Lower 
Loire,  to  the  daughters  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday.  But 
presently,  stopping  short  in  his  tale,  he  announced  to  his 
companion  that  they  had  reached  their  destination. 

Petit-Pierre,  convinced  that  he  was  about  to  see  beings 
analogous  to  the  witches  in  "  Macbeth,  "  was  calling  up  all 
his  courage  to  enter  the  dreaded  castle,  when,  at  a  turn  of 
the  road,  he  saw  before  him  an  open  gate,  and  before  the 
gate  two  white  figures,  who  seemed  to  be  waiting  there, 
lighted  by  a  torch  carried  behind  them  by  a  man  of  rugged 
features  and  rustic  clothes.  Mary  and  Bertha  —  for  it  was 
they  —  informed  by  Baron  Michel,  had  come  to  meet  their 
uninvited  guests.  Petit-Pierre  eyed  them  curiously.  He 
saw  two  charming  young  girls,  —  one  fair,  with  blue  eyes 
and  an  almost  angelic  face  ;  the  other,  with  black  hair  and 
eyes,  a  proud  and  resolute  bearing,  a  frank  and  loyal  coun- 
tenance.    Both  were  smiiing. 

Bameau-d'or's  young  companion  slid  from  his  horse,  and 
the  two  advanced  together  toward  the  ladies. 

"  My  friend  Baron  Michel  encouraged  me  to  hope,  mes- 
demoiselles, that  your  father,  the  Marquis  de  Souday, 
would  grant  us  hospitality,"  said  the  Comte  de  Bonneville, 
bowing  to  the  two  girls. 

"  My  father  is  absent,  monsieur,  "  replied  Bertha.  "  He 
will  regret  having  lost  this  occasion  to  exercise  a  virtue 
which  in  these  days  we  cannot  often  practise." 

"  I  do  not  know  if  Michel  told  you,  mademoiselle,  that  this 
hospitality  may  possibly  involve  some  danger.  My  young 
companion  and  I  are  almost  proscribed  persons.  Persecu- 
tion may  be  the  cost  of  your  granting  us  an  asylum." 

"  You  come  here  in  the  name  of  a  cause  which  is  ours, 


136  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

monsieur.  Were  you  merely  strangers,  you  would  be  hos- 
pitably received.  Being,  as  you  are,  royalists  and  pro- 
scribed, you  are  heartily  welcome,  even  if  death  and  ruin 
enter  this  poor  household  with  you.  If  my  father  were 
here  he  would  say  the  same." 

"  Monsieur  le  Baron  Michel  has,  no  doubt,  told  you  my 
name;  it  remains  for  me  to  tell  you  that  of  my  young 
companion." 

"We  do  not  ask  to  know  it,  monsieur;  your  situation  is 
more  to  us  than  your  names,  whatever  they  may  be.  You 
are  royalists,  proscribed  for  a  cause  to  which,  women  as  we 
are,  we  would  gladly  give  every  drop  of  our  blood.  Enter 
this  house;  it  is  neither  rich  nor  sumptuous,  but  at  least 
you  will  find  it  faithful  and  discreet." 

With  a  gesture  of  great  dignity,  Bertha  pointed  to  the 
gate,  and  signed  to  the  two  young  men  to  enter  it. 

"May  Saint- Julien  be  ever  blessed!"  said  Petit-Pierre 
in  Bonneville's  ear.  "Here  is  the  château  and  the  cottage 
between  which  you  wanted  me  to  choose,  united  in  this 
night's  lodging.  They  please  me  through  and  through, 
your  wolves." 

So  saying,  he  entered  the  postern,  with  a  graceful 
inclination  of  the  head  to  the  two  young  girls.  The  Comte 
de  Bonneville  followed.  Mary  and  Bertha  made  an  amica- 
ble gesture  of  farewell  to  Michel,  and  the  latter  held  out  her 
hand  to  him.  But  Jean  Oullier  closed  the  gate  so  roughly 
that  the  luckless  young  man  had  no  time  to  grasp  it. 

He  looked  for  a  few  moments  at  the  towers  of  the  castle, 
which  stood  out  blackly  against  the  dark  background  of 
the  sky.  He  watched  the  lights  appearing,  one  by  one,  in 
the  windows;  and  then,  at  last,  he  turned  and  went  away. 

When  he  had  fairly  disappeared  the  bushes  moved,  and 
gave  passage  to  an  individual  who  had  witnessed  this 
scene,  with  a  purpose  very  different  from  that  of  the  actors 
in  it.  That  individual  was  Courtin,  who,  after  satisfying 
himself  that  no  one  was  near,  took  the  same  path  his  young 
master  had  taken  to  return  to  La  Logerie. 


AN    UNSEASONABLE    HOUR.  137 


XV. 

AN    UNSEASONABLE    HOUR. 

It  was  about  two  in  the  morning,  perhaps,  when  the  young 
Baron  Michel  again  reached  the  end  of  the  avenue,  which 
leads  to  the  château  de  la  Logerie.  The  atmosphere  was 
calm;  the  majestic  silence  of  the  night,  which  was  broken 
only  by  the  rustling  of  the  leaves,  led  him  into  reverie. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  say  that  the  two  sisters  were  the 
objects  of  his  thought,  and  that  the  one  whose  image  the 
baron  followed  with  as  much  respect  and  love  as  Tobit  fol- 
lowed the  angel  in  the  Bible,  was  Mary. 

But  when  he  saw  before  him,  at  the  farther  end  of  the 
dark  arcade  of  trees  beneath  which  he  was  walking,  the 
windows  of  the  chateau,  which  were  sparkling  in  the  moon- 
light, all  his  charming  visions  vanished,  and  his  ideas 
took  a  far  more  practical  direction.  In  place  of  the  ravish- 
ing figures  of  girlhood  so  lately  beside  him,  he  saw  the 
stern  and  threatening  outline  of  his  mother. 

We  know  the  terror  with  which  she  inspired  him.  lie 
stopped  short.  If  in  all  the  neighborhood  there  were  any 
shelter,  even  a  tavern,  in  which  he  could  spend  the  night, 
he  would  not  have  returned  to  the  house  till  the  next  day, 
so  great  were  his  apprehensions.  It  was  the  first  time  he 
had  ever  been  late  in  getting  home,  and  he  felt  instinctively 
that  his  mother  was  on  the  watch  for  him.  What  should 
he  answer  to  the  dreadful  inquiry,  "  Where  have  you 
been?  " 

Courtin  could  give  him  a  night's  lodging;  but  if  he  went 
to  Courtin  he  should  have  to  tell  him  all,  and  the  young 
baron  fully  understood  the  danger  there  was  in  taking  a 


138  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

man  like  Courtin  into  Lis  confidence.  He  decided,  there- 
fore, to  brave  the  maternal  wrath,  —  very  much  as  the 
criminal  decides  to  brave  the  scaffold,  simply  because  he 
cannot  do  otherwise,  —  and  continued  his  way  home. 

Nevertheless,  the  nearer  he  got  to  the  château  the  more 
his  resolution  faltered.  When  he  reached  the  end  of  the 
avenue  where  he  had  to  cross  the  lawn,  and  when  he  saw 
his  mother's  window,  the  only  lighted  window  in  the 
building,  his  heart  failed  him.  No,  his  forebodings  had 
not  misled  him  ;  his  mother  was  on  the  watch.  His  reso- 
lution vanished  entirely,  and  fear,  developing  the  resources 
of  his  imagination,  put  into  his  head  the  idea  of  a  trick 
which,  if  it  did  not  avert  his  mother's  anger,  would  at  any 
rate  delay  the  explosion  of  it. 

He  turned  to  the  right,  glided  along  in  the  shadow  of  a 
buckthorn  hedge,  reached  the  wall  of  the  kitchen  garden, 
over  which  he  climbed,  and  passed  through  the  gate  leading 
from  the  kitchen-garden  to  the  park. 

Up  to  this  moment  all  was  well  ;  but  now  came  the  most 
difficult,  or  rather  the  most  hazardous  part  of  his  enter- 
prise. He  had  to  find  some  window  left  unfastened  by  a 
careless  servant,  by  which  he  could  enter  the  house  and 
slip  back  to  his  own  apartment  unperceived. 

The  château  de  la  Logerie  consists  of  a  large,  square 
building,  flanked  at  the  corners  with  four  towers  of  the 
same  shape.  The  kitchens  and  offices  were  underground, 
the  reception-rooms  on  the  ground-floor,  those  of  the 
baroness  on  the  next  floor,  those  of  her  son  above  her. 
Michel  examined  the  house  on  three  sides,  trying  gently 
but  persistently  every  door  and  window,  keeping  close  to 
the  walls,  stepping  with  precaution,  and  even  holding  his 
breath.     Neither  doors  nor  windows  yielded. 

There  was  still  the  front  of  the  house  to  be  examined. 
This  was  much  the  most  dangerous  side,  for  the  windows 
uf  the  baroness  commanded  it,  and  there  were  no  shrubs  to 
cast  a  protecting  shadow.  Here  he  found  a  window  open. 
True,   it  was  that  of  his  mother's  bedroom;  but   Michel, 


AN   UNSEASONABLE    HOUR.  L39 

now  desperate,  reflected  that  if  he  had  to  be  scolded  be 
would  rather  it  were  without  than  within  the  house,  and 
he  resolved  on  making  the  attempt. 

He  was  cautiously  advancing  round  the  corner  tower 
when  he  saw  a  shadow  moving  on  the  lawn.  A  shadow  of 
course  meant  a  body.  Michel  stopped  and  gave  all  his 
attention  to  the  new  arrival.  He  saw  it  was  a  man,  and 
the  man  was  following  the  path  he  himself  would  have 
taken  had  he  gone,  in  the  first  instance,  straight  to  thé 
house.  The  young  baron  now  made  a  few  steps  backward 
and  crouched  in  the  heavy  shadow  projected  by  the  tower. 

The  man  came  nearer.  He  was  not  more  than  fifty 
yards  from  the  house  when  Michel  heard  the  harsh  voice 
of  his  mother  speaking  from  her  window.  He  congratu- 
lated himself  on  not  having  crossed  the  lawn  and  taken 
the  path  the  man  was  on. 

"Is  that  you,  Michel?  "  asked  the  baroness. 

"No,  madame,  no,"  replied  a  voice,  which  the  young 
baron  recognized,  with  amazement  not  unmingled  with  fear, 
as  that  of  Courtin,  "  you  do  me  too  much  honor  in  taking 
me  for  Monsieur  le  baron." 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  cried  the  baroness,  "  what  brings  you 
here  at  this  hour?  " 

"Ah!  you  may  well  suppose  it  is  something  important, 
Madame  la  baronne." 

"  Has  any  harm  happened  to  my  son?  " 

The  tone  of  agony  in  which  his  mother  said  these  words 
touched  the  young  man  so  deeply  that  he  was  about  to 
rush  out  and  reassure  her  when  Courtin's  answer,  which 
came  immediately,  paralyzed  this  good  intention. 

"Oh!  no,  no,  madame;  I  have  just  seen  the  young  gars, 
if  I  may  so  call  Monsieur  le  baron,  and  he  is  quite  well,  — 
up  to  the  present  moment  at  least." 

"  Present  moment  !  "  said  the  baroness.  "  Is  he  in  any 
danger?  " 

"Well,  yes,"  said  Courtin;  "he  may  get  into  trouble  if 
he  persists  in  running   after  those  female  Satans,  —  and 


140  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

may  hell  clutch  them!  It  is  to  prevent  such  a  misfortune 
that  I  've  taken  the  liberty  to  come  to  you  at  this  time  of 
night,  feeling  sure  that  as  Monsieur  Michel  is  so  late  in 
getting  home  you  would  surely  be  sitting  up  for  him." 

"  You  did  right,  Courtin.  Where  is  he  now,  —  do  you 
know?" 

Courtin  looked  about  him. 

"I  am  surprised  he  has  not  come  in.  I  took  the  county 
road  so  as  to  leave  him  the  wood-path  clear,  and  that 's  a 
good  half-mile  shorter  than  the  road." 

"But  tell  me  at  once,  where  has  he  been;  where  is  he 
coming  from;  what  has  he  done;  why  is  he  roaming  the 
country  at  two  in  the  morning,  without  considering  my 
anxiety  or  reflecting  that  he  is  injuring  my  health  as  well 
as  his  own?  " 

"Madame  la  baronne,  I  cannot  answer  those  questions 
in  the  open  air."  Then,  lowering  his  voice,  he  added, 
"  What  I  have  to  tell  madame  is  so  important  that  she  had 
better  hear  it  in  her  own  room.  Besides,  as  the  young 
master  is  not  yet  in,  he  may  be  here  at  any  moment,"  said 
the  farmer,  looking  uneasily  about  him,  "  and  I  would  n't 
for  all  the  world  have  him  suspect  that  I  keep  a  watch 
upon  him,  though  it  is  for  his  own  good,  and  to  do  you  a 
service.  " 

"Come  in,  then;  you  are  right,"  said  the  baroness. 
"  Come  in,  at  once." 

"Beg  pardon,  madame,  but  how,  if  you  please?" 

"True,"  said  the  baroness,  "the  door  is  locked." 

"If  madame  will  throw  me  the  key  —  " 

"It  is  inside  the  door." 

"Oh,  bother  it!" 

"  I  sent  the  servants  to  bed,  not  wishing  them  to  know 
of  my  son's  misconduct.     Wait;  I  will  ring  for  my  maid." 

"  Oh,  madame,  no  !  "  exclaimed  Courtin,  "  it  is  better  not 
to  let  any  one  into  our  secrets;  it  seems  to  me  the  matter 
is  so  important  that  madame  might  disregard  appearances. 
I  know  madame  was  not  born  to  open  the  door  to  a  poor 


AN    UNSEASONABLE    HOUR.  141 

farmer  like  me;  but  once  in  a  way  il  wouldn't  signify. 
If  everybody  is  asleep  in  the  chateau,  so  much  the  better; 
we  shall  be  safe  from  curiosity." 

"Beally,  Courtin,  you  alarm  me,"  said  the  baroness, 
who  was  in  fact  prevented  from  opening  the  door  by  a 
petty  pride,  which  had  not  escaped  the  farmer's  observa- 
tion.    "I  will  hesitate  no  longer." 

The  baroness  withdrew  from  the  window,  and  a  moment 
later  Michel  heard  the  grinding  of  the  key  and  the  bolts  of 
the  front  door.  He  listened  at  first  in  an  agony  of  appre- 
hension; then  he  became  aware  that  the  door,  which  opened 
with  difficulty,  had  not  been  relocked  or  bolted,  — no  doubt 
because  his  mother  and  Courtin  were  so  pre-occupied  in 
mind.  He  waited  a  few  seconds  till  he  was  sure  the}1-  had 
reached  the  upper  floor.  Then,  gliding  along  the  wall,  he 
mounted  the  portico,  pushed  open  the  door,  which  turned 
noiselessly  on  its  hinges,  and  entered  the  vestibule. 

His  original  intention  had  been,  of  course,  to  regain  his 
room  and  await  events,  while  pretending  to  be  asleep.  In 
that  case  the  exact  hour  of  his  return  home  would  not  be 
known,  and  he  might  still  have  a  chance  to  get  out  of  the 
scrape  by  a  fib.  But  matters  were  much  changed  since  he 
formed  that  intention.  Courtin  had  followed  him;  Courtin 
had  seen  him.  Courtin  must  know  that  the  Comte  de 
Bonneville  and  his  companion  had  taken  refuge  in  the 
château  de  Souclay.  For  a  moment  Michel  forgot  himself 
to  think  of  his  friend,  whom  the  farmer,  with  his  violent 
political  opinions,  might  greatly  injure. 

Instead  of  going  up  to  his  own  floor,  he  slipped,  like  a 
wolf,  along  his  mother's  corridor.  Just  as  he  reached  her 
door  he  heard  her  say  :  — 

"So  you  really  think,  Courtin,  that  my  son  has  been 
enticed  by  one  of  those  miserable  women?  " 

"Yes,  madame,  I  am  sure  of  it;,  and  they  've  got  him  so 
fast  that  I  am  afraid  you  '11  have  a  deal  of  trouble  to  get 
him  away  from  them." 

"Girls  without  a  penny!  " 


142  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  As  for  that,  they  come  of  the  oldest  blood  in  the  coun- 
try, madame,"  said  Courtin,  wishing  to  sound  his  way; 
"and  for  nobles  like  you  that 's  something,  at  any  rate." 

"Faugh!  "  exclaimed  the  baroness;  "bastards!  " 

"But  pretty;  one  is  like  an  angel,  the  other  like  a 
demon." 

"Michel  may  amuse  himself  with  them,  as  so  many 
others,  they  say,  have  done  ;  that 's  possible  ;  but  you 
can't  suppose  that  he  ever  dreamed  of  marrying  one  of 
them?  Nonsense!  he  knows  me  too  well  to  think  that  I 
would  ever  consent  to  such  a  marriage." 

"Barring  the  respect  I  owe  to  him,  Madame  la  baronne, 
my  opinion  is  that  Monsieur  Michel  has  never  reflected  at 
all  about  it,  and  does  n't  yet  know  what  he  feels  for  the 
wolves;  but  one  thing  I  'm  sure  of,  and  that  is  he  is  getting 
himself  into  another  kind  of  trouble,  which  may  compro- 
mise him  seriously." 

"What  do  you  mean,  Courtin? " 

"Well,  confound  it!  "  exclaimed  the  farmer,  seeming  to 
hesitate,  "do  you  know,  madame,  that  it  would  be  very 
painful  to  me,  who  love  and  respect  you,  if  my  duty  com- 
pelled me  to  arrest  my  young  master?  " 

Michel  trembled  where  he  stood;  and  yet  it  was  the 
baroness  to  whom  the  shock  was  most  severe. 

"Arrest  Michel!"  she  exclaimed,  drawing  herself  up; 
"I  think  you  forget  yourself,  Courtin." 

"No,  madame,  I  do  not." 

"But  —  " 

"I  am  your  farmer,  it  is  true,"  continued  Courtin,  mak- 
ing the  baroness  a  sign  with  his  hand  to  control  herself. 
"  I  am  bound  to  give  you  an  exact  account  of  the  harvests, 
on  which  you  have  half  the  profits,  and  to  pay  you  promptly 
on  the  day  and  hour  what  is  due,  —  which  I  do  to  the  best 
of  my  ability,  in  spite  of  the  hard  times:  but  before  being 
your  farmer  I  am  a  citizen,  and  I  am,  moreover,  mayor, 
and  in  those  capacities  I  have  duties,  Madame  la  baronne, 
which  I  must  fulfil,  whether  my  poor  heart  suffers  or  not." 


AN    UNSEASONABLE    HOUR.  1  ' '■'• 

"What  nonsense  are  you  talking  to  me,  Maître  Courtin? 
Pray,  what  has  my  son  to  do  with  your  duties  as  a  citizen 
and  your  station  as  mayor?  " 

"He  has  this  to  do  with  it,  Madame  la  baronne:  your 
son  has  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  enemies  of  the 
State." 

"I  know  very  well,"  said  the  baroness,  "that  Mon- 
sieur le  Marquis  de  Souday  holds  exaggerated  opinions; 
but  any  love-affairs  that  Michel  may  have  with  one  of 
his  daughters  cannot,  it  seems  to  me,  be  turned  into  a  politi- 
cal misdemeanor." 

"That  love-affair  is  carrying  Monsieur  Michel  much 
farther  than  you  think  for,  Madame  la  baronne,  and  I  tell 
you  so  now.  I  dare  say  he  has  so  far  only  poked  the  end 
of  his  nose  into  the  troubled  waters  about  him;  but  that 's 
enough  for  a  beginning." 

"Come,  enough  of  such  metaphors!  Explain  what  you 
mean,  Courtin." 

"Well,  Madame  la  baronne,  here's  the  truth.  This 
evening,  after  being  present  at  the  death-bed  of  that  old 
Chouan  Tin  guy,  and  running  the  risk  of  bringing  a  malig- 
nant fever  home  with  him,  and  after  accompanying  one  of 
the  wolves  to  the  château  de  Souday,  Monsieur  le  baron 
served  as  guide  to  two  peasants  who  were  no  more  peasants 
than  l 'm  a  gentleman;  and  he  took  them  to  the  chateau 
de  Souday." 

"  Who  told  you  so,  Courtin?  " 

"  My  own  two  eyes,  Madame  la  baronne  ;  they  are  good, 
and  I  trust  them." 

"Did  you  get  an  idea  who  those  peasants  were?  " 

"The  two  false  peasants?  " 

"Yes,  of  course." 

"  One,  I  'd  take  my  oath  of  it,  was  the  Comte  de  Bonne- 
ville, —  a  violent  Chouan,  he!  No  one  can  fool  me  about 
him;  he  has  been  long  in  the  country,  and  I  know  him. 
As  for  the  other  —  " 

Courtin  paused. 


144  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

"Go  on,"  said  the  baroness,  impatiently. 

"As  for  the  other,  if  I  'in  not  mistaken,  that 's  a  better 
discovery  still  —  " 

"But  who  is  it?     Come,  Courtin,  tell  me  at  once." 

"  No,  Madame  la  baronne.  I  shall  tell  the  name  —  I 
shall  probably  be  obliged  to  do  so  —  tu  the  authorities." 

"The  authorities!  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  you  are 
going  to  denounce  my  son?  "  cried  the  baroness,  amazed 
and  stupefied  at  the  tone  her  farmer,  hitherto  so  humble, 
was  assuming. 

"Assuredly  I  do,  Madame  la  baronne,"  said  Courtin, 
composedly. 

"Nonsense!  you  would  not  think  of  it." 

"  I  do  think  it,  Madame  la  baronne,  and  I  should  be  now 
on  the  road  to  Montaigu  or  even  to  Nantes,  if  I  had  not 
wished  to  warn  you,  so  that  you  may  put  Monsieur  Michel 
out  of  harm's  way." 

"But,  supposing  that  Michel  is  concerned  in  this  affair," 
said  the  baroness,  vehemently;  "you  will  compromise  me 
with  all  my  neighbors,  and  —  who  knows?  —  you  may 
draw  down  horrible  reprisals  on  La  Logerie." 

"Then  we  must  defend  the  château,  that 's  all,  Madame 
la  baronne." 

"Courtin!" 

"  I  saw  the  great  war,  Madame  la  baronne.  I  was  a  lit- 
tle fellow  then,  but  I  remember  it,  and  on  my  word  of 
honor  I  don't  want  to  see  the  like  again.  I  don't  want  to 
see  my  twenty  acres  of  land  a  battlefield  for  both  parties, 
my  harvests  eaten  by  one  or  burned  by  the  other  ;  still  less 
do  I  want  to  see  the  Whites  lay  hands  on  the  National 
domain,  which  they  will  do  if  they  get  the  chance.  Out 
of  my  twenty  acres,  five  belonged  to  émigrés.  I  bought 
'em  and  paid  for  'em  ;  that 's  one  quarter  of  all  I  own. 
Besides,  here  's  another  thing:  the  government  relies 
upon  me,  and  I  wish  to  justify  the  confidence  of  the 
government." 

"But,  Courtin,"  said  the  baroness,  almost  ready  to  conn 


AN   UNSEASONABLE    HOUE.  145 

down  to  entreaty,  "matters  can't  be  as  serious  as  you  imag- 
ine, I  am  sure." 

"Beg  pardon,  Madame  la  baronne,  they  are  very  serious 
indeed.  I  am  only  a  peasant,  but  that  does  n't  prevent  mo 
from  knowing  as  much  as  others  know,  being  blessed  with 
a  good  ear  and  a  gift  for  listening.  The  lletz  district  is 
all  but  at  the  boiling-point;  another  fagot  and  the  pot  will 
boil  over." 

"Courtin,  you  must  be  mistaken." 

"No,  Madame  la  baronne,  I  am  not  mistaken.  I  know 
what  I  know.  God  bless  me  !  the  nobles  have  met  three 
times, — once  at  the  Marquis  de  Souday's,  once  at  the 
house  of  the  man  they  call  Louis  Eenaud,  and  once  at  the 
Comte  de  Saint-Amand's.  All  those  meetings  smelt  of 
powder,  Madame  la  baronne.  À  proxys  of  powder,  there  's 
two  hundred  weight  of  it  and  sacks  of  cartridges  in  Ww. 
Vicar  of  Montbert's  house.  Moreover, — and  this  is  the 
most  serious  thing  of  all,  —  they  are  expecting  Madame  la 
Duchesse  de  Berry,  and  from  something  I  have  just  seen, 
it  is  my  opinion  they  won't  have  long  to  wait  for  her." 

"Why  so?" 

"I  think  she  is  here  already." 

"Good  God!  where?" 

"Well,  at  the  château  de  Souday,  where  Monsieur 
Michel  took  her  this  evening." 

"Michel!  oh,  the  unfortunate  boy!  But  you  won't  say 
a  word  about  it,  will  you,  Courtin?  Besides,  the  govern- 
ment must  have  made  its  plans.  If  the  duchess  attempts 
to  return  to  La  Vendee,  she  will  be  arrested  before  she  can 
get  here." 

"Nevertheless,  she  is  here,"  persisted  Courtin. 

"All  the  more  reason  why  you  should  hold  your  tongue." 

"I  like  that!  And  what  becomes  of  the  profits  and  the 
glory  of  such  a  prize,  not  counting  that  before  the  capture 
is  made  by  somebody  else  the  whole  country  will  be  in 
blood  and  arms?  No.  Madame  la  baronne;  no,  I  cannot 
hold  my  tongue." 

VOL.    I. 10 


146  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Then  what  is  to  be  doue?    Good  God!  what  can  I  do?  " 

"I  '11  tell  you,  Madame  la  baronne;  listen  to  me  —  " 

"Goon." 

"Well,  as  I  want  to  remain  your  zealous  and  faithful 
servant,  all  the  while  being  a  good  citizen,  —  and  because  I 
hope  that  in  gratitude  for  what  I  am  doing  for  you,  you 
will  let  me  keep  my  farm  on  terms  that  I  am  able  to  pay, — 
I  will  agree  to  say  nothing  about  Monsieur  Michel.  But 
you  must  try  to  keep  him  out  of  this  wasps'  nest  in  future. 
He  is  in  it  now,  that 's  true;  but  there  's  still  time  to  get 
him  out." 

"You  need  not  trouble  yourself  about  that,  Courtin." 

"But  if  I  might  say  a  word,  Madame  la  baronne  —  " 

"Well,  what?" 

"I  don't  quite  dare  to  give  advice  to  Madame  la 
baronne;    it  is  not  my  place,   but  —  " 

"Go  on,  Courtin;  go  on." 

"  Well,  in  order  to  get  Monsieur  Michel  completely  out 
of  this  hornets'  nest,  I  think  you  '11  have  —  by  some  means 
or  other,  prayers  or  threats  —  to  make  him  leave  la 
Logerie  and  go  to  Paris." 

"Yes,  you  are  right,  Courtin." 

"Only,  I  am  afraid  he  won't  consent." 

"If  I  decide  it,  Courtin,  he  must  consent." 

"He  will  be  twenty-one  in  eleven  months;  he  is  very 
nearly  his  own  master." 

"  I  tell  you  he  shall  go,  Courtin.  What  are  you  listening 
for?" 

Courtin  had  turned  his  head  to  the  door,  as  if  he  heard 
something. 

"I  thought  some  one  was  in  the  corridor,"  he  said. 

"Look  and  see." 

Courtin  took  a  light  and  rushed  into  the  passage. 

"  There  was  no  one,  "  he  said,  "  though  I  certainly  thought 
I  heard  a  step." 

"  Where  do  you  suppose  he  can  be,  the  wretched  boy,  at 
this  time  of  nierht?  "  said  the  baroness. 


AN   UNSEASONABLE   HOUR.  147 

"Perhaps  he  has  gone  to  my  house,"  said  Courtin.  "He 
has  confidence  in  nie,  and  it  would  n't  be  the  first  time  he 
has  come  to  tell  me  of  his  little  troubles." 

"Possibly.  You  had  better  go  home  now;  and  remember 
your  promise." 

"And  do  you  remember  yours,  Madame  la  baronne.  If 
he  comes  in  lock  him  up.  Don't  let  him  communicate 
with  the  wolves,  for  if  he  sees  them  —  " 

"What  then?" 

"  I  should  n't  be  surprised  to  hear  some  day  that  he  was 
firing  behind  the  gorse." 

"God  forbid!  Oh!  he'll  kill  me  with  anxiety.  What 
a  luckless  idea  it  was  of  my  husband  ever  to  come  to  this 
cursed  place!  " 

"Luckless,  indeed,  madame,  — especially  for  him." 

The  baroness  bowed  her  head  sadly  under  the  recollec- 
tions thus  evoked.  Courtin  now  left  her,  looking  about 
him  carefully  to  see  that  no  one  was  stirring  in  the  château 
de  la  Loger ie. 


148  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XVI. 


COURTIN  S    DIPLOMACY. 

Courtin  had  hardly  taken  a  hundred  steps  on  the  path 
that  led  to  his  farmhouse  before  he  heard  a  rustling-  in  the 
bushes  near  which  he  passed. 

"Who  's  there?  "  he  said,  standing  in  the  middle  of  the 
path,  and  putting  himself  on  guard  with  the  heavy  stick 
he  carried. 

"Friend,"  replied  a  youthful  voice. 

And  the  owner  of  the  voice  came  through  the  bushes. 

"Why,  it  is  Monsieur  le  baron!  "  cried  the  farmer. 

"I,  myself,  Courtin,"  replied  Michel. 

"Where  are  you  going  at  this  time  of  night?  Good 
God  !  if  Madame  la  baronne  knew  you  were  roaming  about 
in  the  darkness,  what  do  you  suppose  she  would  say?" 
said  the  farmer,  pretending  surprise. 

"That's  just  it,  Courtin." 

"Hang  it!  I  suppose  Monsieur  le  baron  has  his  rea- 
sons," said  the  farmer,  in  his  jeering  tone. 

"  Yes  ;  and  you  shall  hear  them  as  soon  as  we  get  to  your 
house." 

"My  house!  Are  you  going  to  my  house?  "  said 
Courtin,   surprised. 

"You  don't  refuse  to  take  me  in,  do  you?  "  asked 
Michel. 

"Good  heavens,  no!  Eefuse  to  take  you  into  a  house 
which,   after  all,    is  yours?  " 

"Then  don't  let  us  lose  time,  it  is  so  late.  You  walk 
first,  I  '11  follow." 


courtin's  diplomacy.  149 

Courtin,  rather  uneasy  at  the  imperative  tone  of  his 
young  master,  obeyed.  A  few  steps  farther  on  he  climbed 
a  bank,  crossed  an  orchard,  and  reached  the  door  of  his 
farmhouse.  As  soon  as  he  entered  the  lower  room,  which 
served  him  as  kitchen  and  living-room,  he  drew  a  few 
scattered  brands  together  on  the  hearth  and  blew  up  a 
blaze;  then  he  lighted  a  candle  of  yellow  wax  and  stuck  it 
on  the  chimney-piece.  By  the  light  of  this  candle  he  saw 
what  he  could  not  see  by  the  light  of  the  moon,  —  namely, 
that  Michel  was  as  pale  as  death. 

"My  God!  what's  the  matter  with  you,  Monsieur  le 
baron?"  he  exclaimed. 

"Courtin,"  said  the  young  man,  frowning,  "I  heard 
every  word  of  your  conversation  with  my  mother." 

"Confound  it!  were  you  listening?"  said  the  farmer,  a 
good  deal  surprised.  But,  recovering  instantly,  he  added, 
"Well,  what  of  it?" 

"  You  want  your  lease  renewed  next  year?  " 

"I,  Monsieur  le  baron?  " 

"You,  Courtin;  and  you  want  it  much  more  than  you 
choose  to  own." 

"Of  course  I  shouldn't  be  sorry  to  have  it  renewed, 
Monsieur  le  baron  ;  but  if  there  's  any  objection  it  would  n't 
be  the  death  of  me." 

"Courtin,  I  am  the  person  who  will  renew  your  lease, 
because  I  shall  be  of  age  by  that  time." 

"Yes,  that 's  so,  Monsieur  le  baron." 

"But  you  will  understand,"  continued  the  young  man, 
to  whom  the  desire  of  saving  the  Comte  de  Bonneville  and 
staying  near  Mary  gave  a  firmness  and  resolution  quite 
foreign  to  his  character,  "you  understand,  don't  you,  that 
if  you  do  as  you  said  to-night,  —  that  is,  if  you  denounce 
my  friends,  — I  shall  most  certainly  not  renew  the  lease 
of  an  informer?" 

"Oh!  oh!"  exclaimed  Courtin. 

"That  is  certain.  Once  out  of  this  farm  you  may  say 
good-bye  to  it,  Courtin;  you  shall  never  return  to  it." 


150  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"But  my  duty  to  the  government  and  Madame  la 
baronne?  " 

"All  that  is  nothing  to  me.  I  am  Baron  Michel  de  la 
Logerie;  the  estate  and  château  de  la  Logerie  belong  to 
me;  my  mother  resigns  them  when  I  come  of  age;  I  shall 
be  of  age  in  eleven  months,  and  your  lease  falls  in  eight 
weeks  later." 

"But  suppose  T  renounce  my  intention,  Monsieur  le 
baron?  " 

"If  you  renounce  your  intention,  your  lease  shall  be 
renewed." 

"On  the  same  conditions  as  before?  " 

"On  the  same  conditions  as  before." 

"Oh,  Monsieur  le  baron,  if  I  were  not  afraid  of  com- 
promising you,"  said  Courtin,  fetching  pen,  ink,  and  paper 
from  the  drawer  of  a  desk. 

"What  does  all  this  mean?"  demanded  Michel. 

"Oh,  hang  it!  if  Monsieur  le  baron  would  only  have  the 
kindness  to  write  down  what  he  has  just  said,  —  who 
knows  which  of  us  will  die  first?  For  my  part,  I  am  ready 
to  swear,  — here  's  a  crucifix,  — well,  I  swear  by  Christ  —  " 

"I  don't  want  your  oaths,  Courtin,  for  I  shall  go  from 
here  to  Souday  and  warn  Jean  Oullier  to  be  on  his  guard, 
and  Bonneville  to  get  another  resting-place." 

"So  much  the  more  reason,"  said  Courtin,  offering  a 
pen  to  his  young  master. 

Michel  took  the  pen  and  wrote  as  follows  on  the  paper 
which  the  farmer  laid  before  him  :  — 

"I,  the  undersigned,  Auguste-François  Michel,  Baron 
de  la  Logerie,  agree  to  renew  the  lease  of  farmer  Courtin 
on  the  same  conditions  as  the  present  lease." 

Then,  as  he  was  about  to  date  it,  Courtin  stopped  him. 

"Don't  put  the  date,  if  you  please,  my  young  master,"  he 
said.     "We  will  date  it  the  day  after  you  come  of  age." 

"So  be  it,"  said  Michel. 

He  then  merely  signed  it,  and  left,  between  the  pledge 
and  the  signature,  a  line  to  receive  the  future  date. 


COURTIN'S   DirLOMACY.  151 

"  If  Monsieur  le  baron  would  like  to  be  more  comfortable 
for  the  night  than  on  that  stool,"  said  Courtin,  "I  will 
take  the  liberty  to  mention  that  there  is,  at  his  service 
upstairs,  a  bed  that  is  not  so  bad." 

"No,"  replied  Michel;  "did  you  not  hear  me  say  I  was 
going  to  Souday?" 

"  What  for?  Monsieur  le  baron  has  my  promise,  I  pledge 
him  my  word  to  say  nothing.     He  has  time  enough." 

"  What  you  saw,  Courtin,  another  may  have  seen.  You 
may  keep  silence  because  you  have  promised  it;  but  the 
other,  who  did  not  promise,  will  speak.     Good-bye  to  you." 

"Monsieur  le  baron  will  do  as  he  likes,"  said  Courtin; 
"but  he  makes  a  mistake,  yes,  a  great  mistake,  in  going 
back  into  that  mouse-trap." 

"Pooh!  I  thank  you  for  your  advice;  but  I  am  not 
sorry  to  let  you  know  I  am  of  an  age  now  to  do  as  I 
choose." 

Rising  as  he  said  the  words,  with  a  firmness  of  which 
the  farmer  had  supposed  him  incapable,  he  went  to  the 
door  and  left  the  house.  Courtin  followed  him  with  his 
eyes  till  the  door  was  closed;  after  which,  snatching  up  the 
written  promise,  he  read  it  over,  folded  it  carefully  in 
four,  and  put  it  away  in  his  pocket-book.  Then,  fancying 
he  heard  voices  at  a  little  distance,  he  went  to  the  window 
and,  drawing  back  the  curtain,  saw  the  young  baron  face 
to  face  with  his  mother. 

"Ha,  ha,  my  young  cockerel!"  he  said;  "you  crowed 
pretty  loud  with  me,  but  there  's  an  old  hen  who  '11  make 
you  lower  your  comb." 

The  baroness,  finding  that  her  son  did  not  return, 
thought  that  Courtin  might  be  right  when  he  suggested 
that  Michel  was  possibly  at  the  farmhouse.  She  hesitated 
a  moment,  partly  from  pride,  partly  from  fear  of  going 
out  alone  at  night;  but,  finally,  her  maternal  uneasiness 
got  the  better  of  her  reluctance,  and  wrapping  herself  in 
a  large  shawl,  she  set  out  for  the  farmhouse.  As  she 
approached    the   door   her   son   came   out    of    it.      Then, 


152  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

relieved  of  her  fears  for  liis  safety,  and  seeing  him  sound 
and  well,  her  imperious  nature  reasserted  itself. 

Michel,  for  his  part,  on  catching  sight  of  his  mother, 
made  a  step  backward  in  terror. 

"Follow  me,  sir,"  said  the  baroness.  "It  is  not  too 
early,  I  think,  to  return  home." 

The  poor  lad  never  once  thought  of  arguing  or  resisting; 
he  followed  his  mother  passively  and  obediently  as  a  child. 
Not  a  word  was  exchanged  between  mother  and  son  the 
whole  way.  For  that  matter,  Michel  much  preferred  this 
silence  to  a  discussion  in  which  his  filial  obedience,  or 
rather,  let  us  say,  his  weak  nature,  would  have  had  the 
worst  of  it. 

When  they  reached  the  château  day  was  breaking.  The 
baroness,  still  silent,  conducted  the  young  man  to  his  room. 
There  he  found  a  table  prepared  with  food. 

"You  must  be  hungry  and  very  tired,"  said  the  baroness. 
"There  you  have  food,  and  here  you  can  rest,"  she  added, 
waving  her  hand  to  the  table  and  the  bed,  after  which  she 
retired,  closing  the  door  after  her. 

The  young  man  trembled  as  he  heard  the  key  turned 
twice  in  the  lock.  He  was  a  prisoner!  He  fell  helplessly 
into  an  arm-chair.  Events  wore  rushing  on  like  an  ava- 
lanche, and  a  more  vigorous  organization  than  that  of  Baron 
Michel  might  have  given  way  under  them.  As  it  was,  he 
had  only  a  certain  small  amount  of  energy,  and  that  was 
all  expended  in  his  interview  with  Courtin. 

Perhaps  he  had  presumed  too  much  upon  his  strength 
when  he  told  Courtin  he  should  go  to  the  château  de 
Souday;  at  any  rate,  he  was,  as  his  mother  said,  tired  out 
and  very  hungry.  At  Michel's  age  Nature  is  a  mother, 
too,  who  will  have  her  rights.  Besides,  a  certain  ease  of 
mind  had  stolen  over  him.  His  mother's  words,  as  she 
pointed  to  the  table  and  the  bed,  seemed  to  imply  that 
she  did  not  mean  to  return  until  he  had  eaten  and  slept. 
It  gave  him  some  hours  of  calm  before  the  storm  of 
explanation. 


courtin's  diplomacy.  153 

Michel  ate  hastily,  and  then,  after  trying  the  door  to 
make  sure  that  he  was  really  a  prisoner,  he  went  to  bed 
and  to  sleep. 

At  ten  o'clock  he  awoke.  The  beams  of  a  splendid 
May  sun  were  coming  joyously  through  his  windows.  He 
opened  the  windows.  The  birds  were  singing  in  the 
branches,  which  were  just  then  covered  with  their  young 
and  tender  leafage.  The  roses  were  budding  ;  the  Brst 
butterflies  were  circling  in  the  air.  On  such  a  day  it 
seemed  as  though  misfortune  were  imprisoned  and  could 
not  come  to  any  one.  The  young  man  found  a  sort  of 
strength  in  this  revival  of  Nature,  and  awaited  the  dreaded 
interview  with  his  mother  with  more  composure. 

But  the  hours  went  by.  Mid-day  struck,  and  still  the 
baroness  did  not  appear.  Michel  then  noticed,  with  a  cer- 
tain uneasiness,  that  the  table  had  been  amply  supplied,  not 
only  for  his  supper  of  the  night  before,  but  also  for  the 
breakfast  and  dinner  of  the  following  day.  He  began  to 
fear  that  his  captivity  might  last  much  longer  than  he 
expected.  This  fear  grew  deeper  as  two  and  then  three 
o'clock  struck.  He  listened  for  every  sound,  and  after  a 
time  he  fancied  he  heard  shots  in  the  direction  of  Mon- 
taigu.  These  sounds  had  all  the  regularity  of  platoon 
firing,  and  yet  it  was  impossible  to  say  whether  they  came 
actually  from  a  fusillade.  Montaigu  was  six  miles  from 
La  Logerie,  and  a  distant  thunder-storm  might  produce 
somewhat  the  same  sounds. 

But  no!  the  sky  was  cloudless;  there  was  no  storm. 
The  sounds  lasted  over  an  hour;  then  all  was  silent.  The 
baron's  uneasiness  now  became  so  great  that  he  forgot  to 
eat  the  food  prepared  for  him.  He  resolved  on  one  thing, 
—  namely,  as  soon  as  night  came  and  the  people  of  the 
house  were  in  bed  he  would  cut  out  the  lock  of  the  door 
with  his  knife  and  leave  the  château,  not  by  the  front 
entrance,  but  by  some  window  on  the  lower  fluor. 

This  possibility  of  flight  restored  the  prisoner's  appetite. 
He  dined  like  a  man  who  thinks  he  has  a  toilsome  night 


154  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

before  him,  and  who  gathers  strength  to  make  head 
against  it. 

He  finished  his  dinner  about  seven  in  the  evening.  It 
would  be  dusk  in  another  hour.  He  flung  himself  on  his 
bed  and  waited.  He  would  fain  have  slept,  for  sleep 
would  have  shortened  the  time  of  waiting,  but  his  mind 
was  too  uneasy.  He  closed  his  eyes,  to  be  sure,  but  his 
ears,  constantly  alert,  heard  every  sound.  One  thing  sur- 
prised him  much  ;  he  had  seen  nothing  of  his  mother.  She 
would  certainly,  he  thought,  expect  him  to  do  what  he 
could  to  escape  as  soon  as  it  was  dark.  No  doubt  she  was 
planning  something;  but  what  could  it  be? 

Suddenly  Michel  thought  he  heard  the  tinkling  of  bells 
which  are  usually  fastened  to  the  collars  of  post-horses. 
He  ran  to  the  window.  He  seemed  to  see,  coming  along 
the  road  from  Montaigu,  an  indistinct  group  moving 
rapidly  in  the  gathering  darkness  toward  the  château  de 
la  Logerie.  The  sound  of  horses'  hoofs  now  mingled  with 
the  tinkling  of  the  bells.  Presently  the  postilion  cracked 
his  whip,  probably  to  announce  his  coming.  No  doubt 
remained  ;  it  certainly  was  a  postilion  with  post-horses  on 
his  way  to  the  château. 

Instinctively  the  young  man  looked  toward  the  stables, 
and  there  he  saw  the  servants  dragging  his  mother's 
travelling-carriage  from  the  coach-house.  A  flash  of  light 
came  into  his  mind.  These  post-horses  from  Montaigu, 
the  postilion  cracking  his  whip,  the  travelling-carriage 
making  ready  for  use,  —  no  doubt,  no  doubt  at  all  remained  ; 
his  mother  meant  to  leave  La  Logerie  and  take  him  with 
her.  That  was  why  she  had  locked  him  up  and  kept  him  a 
prisoner.  She  meant  to  come  for  him  at  the  last  moment, 
force  him  to  get  into  the  carriage  with  her,  and  away, 
away  from  everything  he  would  be  forced  to  go.  She 
knew  her  ascendency  over  her  son  sufficiently  well  to  be 
certain  he  would  not  venture  to  resist  her. 

The  consciousness  that  his  mother  had  this  conviction 
exasperated  the  young  man  all  the  more  because  he  knew 


courtin's  diplomacy.  155 

it  was  a  true  one.  It  was  evident  to  his  own  mind  that  if 
the  baroness  once  came  face  to  face  with  him  he  would  not 
dare  to  oppose  her. 

But  to  leave  Mary,  renounce  that  life  of  emotion  to 
which  the  sisters  had  introduced  him,  to  take  no  part  in 
the  drama  which  the  Comte  de  Bonneville  and  his  mysteri- 
ous companion  had  come  into  La  Vendee  to  play,  seemed 
to  him  impossible  and  dishonoring.  What  would  those 
young  girls  think  of  him? 

Michel  resolved  to  run  all  risks  rather  than  endure  the 
humiliation  of  their  contempt. 

He  went  to  the  window  and  measured  with  his  eye  the 
height  from  the  ground;  it  was  thirty  feet.  The  young 
baron  stood  in  thought  for  a  moment.  Evidently  some 
great  struggle  was  going  on  within  him.  At  last  it  was 
decided.  He  went  to  his  desk  and  took  out  a  large  sum  of 
money  in  gold,  with  which  he  filled  his  pockets.  Just  then 
he  thought  he  heard  steps  in  the  corridor.  He  hastily 
closed  his  desk  and  threw  himself  on  his  bed,  expectant. 
An  observer  would  have  seen  by  the  unusual  firmness  of 
the  muscles  of  his  face  that  his  resolution  was  taken. 

What  was  that  resolution?  In  all  probability  we  shall 
sooner  or  later  discover  what  it  was. 


156  THE    LAST   VENDEE. 


XVII. 

THE    TAVEltN    OF    AUBIN    COURTE-JOIE. 

It  was  plain,  —  even  to  the  authorities,  who  are  usually 
the  last  to  be  informed  as  to  the  state  of  public  opinion  in 
the  countries  they  are  called  upon  to  govern,  —  it  was 
plain,  we  say,  that  an  uprising  was  contemplated  in  Brit- 
tany and  in  La  Vendée. 

We  have  heard  Courtin  tell  Madame  de  la  Logerie  of  the 
meetings  of  the  legitimist  leaders.  Those  meetings  were 
a  secret  to  no  one.  The  names  of  the  new  Bonchamps  and 
Elbées,  who  were  to  put  themselves-  at  the  head  of  this  last 
Vendéan  struggle,  were  well-known  and  noted  ;  the  organi- 
zations of  the  former  period  into  "parishes,"  "captaincies," 
and  "divisions,"  were  renewed;  the  priests  refused  to 
chant  the  Domine  salvum  fac  regem  PMlippum,  commend- 
ing to  the  prayers  of  their  people  Henri  V.,  king  of  France, 
and  Marie-Caroline,  regent.  In  short,  in  all  the  depart- 
ments bordering  on  the  Loire,  particularly  those  of  the 
Lower  Loire  and  of  the  Maine-et-Loire,  the  air  was  filled 
with  that  smell  of  powder  which  precedes,  as  a  general 
thing,   all  great  political  convulsions. 

In  spite  of  this  wide-spread  fermentation,  —  perhaps  in 
consequence  of  it,  —  the  fair  at  Montaigu  promised  to  be 
very  brilliant.  Although  it  was  usually  of  small  impor- 
tance, the  influx  of  peasants  on  this  occasion  was  consider- 
able. The  men  from  the  high  lands  of  Mauges  and  Retz 
rubbed  shoulders  with  those  from  the  Bocage  and  the 
plain;  and  the  warlike  inclination  of  all  these  country-folk 
was  manifested  by  the  prevalence  of  broad-brimmed  hats 
and  long-haired  heads,  and  the  absence  of  caps.     In  fact, 


THE    TAVERN    OF   AUBIN    COURTE-JOIE.  157 

the  women,  who  were  usually  the  majority  in  these  com- 
mercial assemblies,  did  not  come,  on  this  occasion,  to  the 
Montaigu  fair. 

Moreover,  —  and  this  alone  would  have  sufficed  to  show 
the  incipient  state  of  things  to  the  least  observing  person, 
—  though  customers  were  plentiful  at  the  fair  of  Montaigu, 
horses,  cows,  sheep,  butter,  and  corn,  which  constituted 
the  ordinary  traffic,  were  conspicuously  absent.  The  peas- 
ants, whether  they  came  from  Beaupréau,  Mortagne, 
Bressuire,  Saint-Fulgent,  or  Machecoul,  carried  in  place 
of  their  usual  marketable  produce  nothing  but  stout  cud- 
gels of  dogwood  tipped  with  iron,  and  by  the  way  they 
grasped  them  it  was  plain  enough  that  they  meant  to  do 
business  of  that  kind. 

The  market-place  and  the  main  (and  only)  street  in 
Montaigu,  which  were  used  as  the  fair-ground,  had  a 
serious,  almost  threatening,  and  certainly  solemn  aspect, 
which  is  not  usual  in  such  assemblages.  A  few  jugglers, 
a  few  vendors  of  quack  medicines,  a  few  teeth-pullers 
tapped  their  boxes,  blew  their  bugles,  clanged  their  gongs, 
and  vaunted  their  trades  facetiously  to  no  purpose  ;  frowns 
continued  on  the  anxious  faces  that  passed  them  by  without 
deigning  to  listen  to  their  music  or  their  chatter. 

The  people  of  La  Vendée,  like  their  neighbors  of  the 
North,  the  Bretons,  talk  but  little.  On  this  occasion  they 
talked  less  than  ever.  Most  of  them  stood  with  their 
backs  against  the  houses  or  the  garden  walls  or  the 
wooden  bars  that  inclosed  the  market-place,  and  there 
they  stood,  motionless,  their  legs  crossed,  their  heads 
under  their  broad  hats  inclining  forward,  and  their  hands 
leaning  on  their  sticks,  like  so  many  statues.  Some  were 
gathered  in  little  groups,  and  these  groups,  which  seemed 
to  be  awaiting  something,  were,  strange  to  say,  as  silent 
as  the  solitary  individuals. 

The  crowds  were  great  in  the  drinking-shops.  Cider, 
brandy,  and  coffee  were  dispensed  there  in  vast  quantities; 
but  the  constitution  of  the  Vende'an  peasant  is  so  robust 


158  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

that  the  enormous  quantities  of  liquor  absorbed  had  no 
visible  influence  ou  the  faces  and  conduct  of  any  of  them. 
Their  color  might  be  a  little  higher,  their  eyes  more  bril- 
liant, but  the  men  were  masters  of  themselves,  and  all  the 
more  so  because  they  distrusted  those  who  kept  the  wine- 
shops, and  the  village  folk  whom  they  met  there.  In  the 
towns  and  villages  along  the  great  high-roads  of  La  Vendée 
and  Brittany  the  minds  of  the  inhabitants  were,  as  a  gen- 
eral thing,  awakened  to  ideas  of  progress  and  liberty  ;  but 
these  sentiments,  which  cooled  at  a  little  distance,  disap- 
peared altogether  when  the  interior  country  districts  were 
reached. 

Consequently,  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  chief  centres  of 
population,  unless  they  had  given  unequivocal  proofs  of 
devotion  to  the  royal  cause,  were  classed  as  "  patriots  "  by 
the  peasantry  ;  and  patriots  were  to  the  peasants  enemies, 
to  whom  they  attributed  all  the  evils  resulting  from  the 
great  insurrection,  hating  them  with  that  deep,  undying 
hatred  which  characterizes  civil  and  religious  warfare. 

In  coming  to  the  fair  at  Montaigu  —  a  centre  of  popu- 
lation, and  occupied  at  this  time  by  a  company  of  some 
hundred  or  so  of  Mobile  guards  —  the  inhabitants  of  the 
country  districts  had  penetrated  to  the  very  centre  of  their 
enemies.  They  understood  this  thoroughly,  and  that  is 
why  they  maintained  under  a  pacific  demeanor  the  reserve 
and  vigilance  of  soldiers  under  arms. 

Only  one  of  the  numerous  drinking-shops  of  Montaigu 
was  kept  by  a  man  on  whom  the  Vendéans  could  rely,  and 
before  whom,  consequently,  they  discarded  all  constraint. 
His  tavern  was  in  the  centre  of  the  town,  on  the  fair- 
ground itself,  at  the  corner  of  the  market-place  and  a  side 
alley  leading,  not  to  another  street  nor  to  the  fields,  but  to 
the  river  Maine,  which  skirts  the  town  to  the  southeast. 

The  tavern  had  no  sign.  A  branch  of  dry  holly,  stuck 
horizontally  into  a  crack  of  the  wall,  and  a  few  apples, 
seen  through  window-panes  so  covered  with  dust  that  no 
curtain  was  needed,  informed  all  strangers  of  the  nature 


THE   TAVERN   OF   AUBIN   COURTE-JOIE.  159 

of  the  establishment.  As  for  its  regular  customers,  they 
needed  no  indications. 

The  proprietor  of  this  tavern  was  named  Aubin  Courte- 
Joie.  Aubin  was  his  family  name;  Courte-Joie  was  a 
nickname,  which  he  owed  to  the  jeering  propensities  of  his 
friends.  He  came  by  it  in  this  way.  The  part,  insignifi- 
cant as  it  is,  which  Aubin  Courte-Joie  plays  in  this  his- 
tory obliges  us  to  say  a  word  on  his  antecedents. 

At  twenty  years  of  age  Aubin  was  so  frail,  debilitated, 
and  sickly,  that  even  the  conscription,  which  did  not  look 
very  closely  into  such  matters,  rejected  him  as  unfit  for 
the  favors  which  his  Imperial  and  Royal  Majesty  bestowed 
upon  his  conscripts.  But  in  1814  this  same  conscription, 
having  then  aged  by  two  years,  was  less  fastidious,  and 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  what  it  had  so  far  considered 
an  abortion  was  at  any  rate  a  numerical  figure,  somewhere 
between  a  one.  and  a  nought,  and  could,  if  only  on  paper, 
contribute  to  the  terrifying  of  the  kings  of  Europe.  Con- 
sequently, the  conscription  laid  hands  on  Aubin. 

But  Aubin,  whom  the  original  disdain  manifested  by  the 
authorities  toward  his  person  had  alienated  from  all  desire 
for  military  glory,  resolved  to  desert  the  government,  and 
taking  to  flight  he  connected  himself  with  one  of  those 
bands  of  refractories  (as  recalcitrant  conscripts  were  then 
called)  who  roamed  the  interior  of  the  country.  The  less 
plentiful  recruits  became,  the  more  pitiless  grew  the  agents 
of  imperial  authority. 

Aubin,  whom  Nature  had  not  endowed  with  excessive 
conceit,  would  never  have  thought  himself  so  necessary  to 
the  government  if  he  had  not  seen  with  his  own  eyes  the 
trouble  that  the  government  took  to  hunt  for  him  through 
the  forests  of  Brittany  and  the  bogs  of  La  Vendee.  The 
gendarmes  were  active  in  their  pursuit  of  refractories. 

In  one  of  the  encounters  that  resulted  from  this  pursuit, 
Aubin  had  used  his  gun  with  a  courage  and  tenacity  which 
proved  that  the  conscription  of  1814  was  not  altogether 
wrong  in  wishing  to  lay  hands  on  him  as  one  of  its  elect, 


1G0  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

—  in  one  of  these  encounters,  we  were  about  to  say,  Aubin 
ball  and  left  for  dead  in  the  roadway. 

On  that  day  a  bourgeoise  of  Ancenis  took  the  road  by 
the  river  bank,  which  leads  from  Ancenis  to  Nantes.  She 
was  in  her  carriole,  and  it  might  be  about  eight  or  nine 
o'clock  at  night  ;  at  any  rate,  it  was  dusk.  When  she 
came  to  the  body  the  horse  shuddered  in  the  shafts  and 
refused  to  go  on.  She  whipped  him,  he  reared.  On 
further  whipping,  the  animal  tried  to  turn  short  round 
and  go  back  to  Ancenis.  His  mistress,  who  had  never 
known  him  to  behave  in  that  way  before,  got  out  of  her 
carriole.  All  was  then  explained.  Aubin's  body  lay 
across  the  road. 

Such  encounters  were  not  infrequent  in  those  daj^s. 
The  bourgeoise  was  only  slightly  alarmed.  She  fastened 
her  horse  to  a  tree,  and  began  to  drag  Aubin's  body  into 
the  ditch,  to  make  room  for  her  vehicle  and  others  that 
might  pass  that  way.  But  she  had  no  sooner  touched  the 
body  than  she  found  it  warm.  The  motion  she  gave  to  it, 
perh  ips  the  pain  of  the  motion,  brought  Aubin  to  his 
senses;  he  gave  a  sigh  and  moved  his  arms. 

The  end  of  it  was  that,  instead  of  putting  him  into  the 
ditch,  the  bourgeoise  put  him  into  her  carriole;  and  instead 
of  continuing  her  way  to  Nantes  she  returned  to  Ancenis. 
The  good  dame  was  pious  and  a  royalist.  The  cause  for 
which  Aubin  was  wounded,  the  scapulary  she  found  on  his 
breast,  interested  her  deeply.  She  sent  for  a  surgeon. 
The  luckless  Aubin  had  both  legs  fractured  by  one  shot; 
it  was  necessary  to  amputate  them.  The  worthy  woman 
nursed  him  and  took  care  of  him  with  all  the  devotion  of 
a  sister  of  charity.  Her  good  deed,  as  often  happens, 
attached  her  to  the  object  of  it,  and  when  Aubin  was  once 
more  well  in  health  it  was  with  the  utmost  astonishment 
that  he  received  an  offer  of  her  heart  and  hand.  Needless 
to  say  that  Aubin  accepted. 

Thenceforth  Nn'>in  became,  to  the  stupefaction  of  all  the 
country  round  one  of  the  small  proprietors  of  the  canton. 


THE   TAVE11N    OF   AUBIN    COURTE- JOIE  161 

But,  alas!  his  joy  was  of  short  duration.  His  wife  died 
within  a  year,  She  had  taken  the  precaution  to  make  a 
will,  leaving  him  all  hei  property;  but  her  natural  heirs 
attacked  it  for  some  error  of  form,  and  the  court  at  Nantes 
having  decided  in  their  favor,  Hie  poor  ex-recruit  was  no 
better  off  than  before  his  luck  happened  to  him.  It  was 
in  reference  to  the  short  duration  of  his  opulence  thai  the 
inhabitants  of  Montaigu,  who  were  not,  as  will  lie  imag- 
ined, without  envy  at  his  rise  or  rejoicing  at  his  fall, 
bestowed  upon  him  tin;  significant  addition  of  Courte-Joie 
(Short-Joy)  to  his  proper  name. 

Now,  the  heirs  who  had  managed  to  set  aside  the  will 
belonged  to  the  liberal  party.  Aubin  could  not,  therefore, 
do  less  than  vent  upon  that  party  in  general  the  anger  that 
the  loss  of  his  propert}  excited  in  him.  lb'  did  so,  and  he 
did  it  conscientiously.  Soured  by  his  infirmities,  embit- 
tered by  what  seemed  to  him  a  horrible  injustice,  Aubin 
Courte-Joie  felt  to  all  those  whom  he  blamed  for-  his 
fortunes — -judges,  patriots,  and  adversaries  —  a  si 
hatred.  Public  events  had  encouraged  this  hatred,  and  it 
was  now  awaiting  a  favorable  moment  to  convert  itself 
info  deeds  which  the  sullen  and  vindictive  nature  of  the 
man  would  undoubtedly  render  terrible. 

With  his  twofold  infirmity  it  was  impossible  l'or  Aubin 
to  go  back  to  his  old  life  and  become  a.  farmer  and  tiller  of 
the  ground  like  his  lather  ami  grandfather  before  him. 
lie  was  compelled,  therefore,  much  against  his  will,  to 
live  in  a  town.  Gathering  up  the  fragments  of  his  lost 
opii li-nce  he  came  to  live  in  the  midst  of  those  he  hated 
most,  at  Montaigu  itself,  where  he  kept  the  tavern  in 
which  we  find  him  eighteen  years  after  the  events  we  have 
just  recorded. 

In  1832  there  was  not  in  all  La  Vendée  a  more  enthusi- 
astic adherent  to  royalist  opinions  than  Aubin  Courte-Joie. 
In  serving  that  cause  was  he  not  fulfilling  a  personal 
geance?     Aubin  Courte-Joie  wa  i    pite  of  his 

two  wooden  legs,  the  mi  :d  intelligent  agent  in 

vol.  i.  —  ll 


162  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

the  uprising  which  was  now  being  organized.  Standing 
sentinel  in  the  midst  of  the  enemy's  camp,  he  kept  the 
Vendéan  leaders  informed  of  all  the  government  prepara- 
tions for  defence,  not  only  in  the  canton  of  Montaigu,  but 
also  throughout  the  adjoining  districts. 

The  tramps  who  roamed  the  country  —  those  customers 
of  a  day,  whom  other  tavern-keepers  considered  of  no 
profit  and  paid  no  heed  to  —  were  in  his  hands  marvellous 
auxiliaries,  whom  he  kept  employed  in  a  circuit  of  thirty 
miles.  He  used  them  as  spies,  and  also  as  messengers  to 
and  from  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  districts.  His 
tavern  was  the  rendezvous  of  all  those  who  were  distinc- 
tively called  Chouans.  It  was  the  only  one,  as  we  have 
said,  where  they  were  not  obliged  to  repress  their  royalist 
sentiments. 

On  the  day  of  the  fair  at  Montaigu  Aubin  Courte-Joie's 
drinking- shop  did  not  at  first  sight  seem  so  full  of  custom- 
ers as  might  have  been  expected  from  the  great  influx  of 
country  people.  In  the  first  of  the  two  rooms,  a  dark  and 
gloomy  apartment,  furnished  with  an  unpolished  wooden 
counter  and  a  few  benches  and  stools,  not  more  than  a 
dozen  peasants  were  assembled.  By  the  cleanliness,  we 
might  say  the  nicety  of  their  clothes,  it  was  plain  that 
these  peasants  belonged  to  the  upper  class  of  farmers. 

This  first  room  was  separated  from  the  second  by  a 
glass  partition,  behind  which  was  a  cotton  curtain  with 
Large  red  and  white  squares.  The  second  room  served  as 
kitchen,  dining-room,  bedroom,  and  office,  becoming  also, 
on  great  occasions  an  annex  to  the  common  hall;  it  was 
where  Aubin  Courte-Joie  received  his  special  friends. 

The  furniture  of  this  room  showed  its  quintuple  service. 
At  the  farther  end  was  a  very  low  bed,  with  a  tester  and 
curtains  of  green  serge;  this  was  evidently  the  couch  of 
the  legless  proprietor.  It  was  flanked  by  two  huge  hogs- 
heads, from  which  brandy  and  cider  were  drawn  on  demand 
of  customers.  To  right,  on  entering,  was  the  fireplace, 
with  a  wide,  high  chimney-piece   like  those  of   cottages. 


THE   TAVERN   OF  AUBIN   COURTE-JOIE.  1G3 

In  the  middle  of  the  room  was  an  oak  table  with  wooden 
benches  on  each  side  of  it.  Opposite  to  the  fireplace  stood 
a  dresser  with  crockery  and  tin  utensils.  A  crucifix  sur- 
mounted by  a  branch  of  consecrated  holly,  a  few  wax 
figurines  of  a  devotional  character  coarsely  colored,  consti- 
tuted the  decoration  of  the  apartment. 

On  this  occasion  Aubin  Courte-Joie  had  admitted  to  this 
sanctuary  a  number  of  his  numerous  friends.  In  the  outer 
room  there  were,  as  we  have  said,  not  more  than  a  dozen  ; 
but  at  least  a  score  were  in  the  second.  Most  of  these 
were  sitting  round  the  table  drinking  and  talking  with 
great  animation.  Three  or  four  were  emptying  great  bags 
piled  up  in  one  corner  of  the  room  and  containing  large, 
round  sea-biscuits  ;  these  they  counted  and  put  in  baskets, 
giving  the  baskets  to  tramps  or  women  who  stood  by  an 
outer  door  in  the  corner  of  the  room  behind  the  cider  cask. 
This  door  opened  upon  a  little  courtyard,  which  itself 
opened  into  the  alley- way  leading  to  the  river,  which  we 
have  already  mentioned. 

Aubin  Courte-Joie  was  seated  in  a  sort  of  arm-chair 
under  the  mantel-shelf  of  the  chimney.  Beside  him  was 
a  man  wearing  a  goatskin  garment  and  a  black  woollen  cap, 
in  whom  we  may  recognize  our  old  friend  Jean  Oullier, 
with  his  dog  lying  at  his  feet  between  his  legs.  Behind 
them  Courte-Joie's  niece,  a  young  and  handsome  peasant 
girl,  Avhom  the  tavern-keeper  had  taken  to  do  the  serving 
of  his  business,  was  stirring  the  fire  and  watching  some 
dozen  brown  cups  in  which  was  gently  simmering  in  the 
heat  from  the  hearth  what  the  peasants  call  "a  roast  of 
cider.  " 

Aubin  Courte-Joie  was  talking  eagerly  in  a  low  voice  to 
Jean  Oullier,  when  a  slight  whistle,  like  the  frightened 
cry  of  a  partridge,  came  from  the  outer  room. 

"Who  came  in?"  said  Courte-Joie,  looking  through  a 
peephole  he  had  made  in  the  curtain.  "The  man  from 
La  Logerie.     Attention!" 

Even  before  this  order  was  given  to  those  whom  it  con- 


/ 


164  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

cerned,  all  was  still  and  orderly  in  Courte-Joie's  sanctum. 
The  outer  door  was  gently  closed;  the  women  and  the 
tramps  disappeared;  the  men  who  were  counting  the  bis- 
cuits had  closed  and  turned  over  their  sacks,  and  were  sit- 
ting on  them,  and  smoking  their  pipes  in  an  easy  attitude. 
As  for  the  men  drinking  at  the  table,  three  or  four  had 
suddenly  gone  to  sleep  as  if  by  enchantment.  Jean 
Oullier  turned  round  toward  the  hearth,  thus  conceal- 
ing his  face  from  the  first  glance  of  any  one  entering 
the  apartment. 


THE  MAN  FKUM  LA  LOGERIE.  16i 


XVIII. 


THE    MAN    FROM    LA    LOGERIE. 


Courtiôst,  —  for  it  was  lie  whom  Courte-Joie  designated  as 
the  man  from  La  Logerie,  —  Courtin  had  entered  the  outer 
room.  Except  for  the  little  cry  of  warning,  so  well  imi- 
tated that  it  was  really  like  the  cry  of  a  frightened  par- 
tridge, no  one  appeared  to  take  any  notice  of  his  presence. 
The  men  who  were  drinking  continued  their  talk,  although, 
serious  as  their  manner  was  when  Courtin  entered,  it  now 
became  suddenly  very  gay  and  noisy. 

The  farmer  looked  about  him,  but  evidently  did  not  find 
in  the  first  room  the  person  he  wanted,  for  he  resolutely 
opened  the  door  of  the  glass  partition  and  showed  his 
sneaking  face  on  the  threshold  of  the  inner  room.  There 
again,  no  one  seemed  to  notice  him.  Mariette  alone, 
Aubin  Courte-Joie's  niece,  who  was  waiting  on  the  cus- 
tomers, withdrew  her  attention  from  the  cider  cups,  and 
looking  at  Courtin  said,  as  she  would  have  done  to  any  of 
her  uncle's  guests  :  — 

"What  shall  I  bring  you,  Monsieur  Courtin?  " 

"Coffee,"  replied  Courtin,  inspecting  the  faces  that  were 
round  the  table  and  in  the  corners  of  the  room. 

"Very  good;  sit  down,"  said  Mariette.  "I'll  bring  it 
to  your  seat  presently." 

"That  's  not  worth  while,"  replied  Courtin,  good- 
humoredly;  "pour  it  out  now.  I  '11  drink  it  here  in  the 
chimney-corner  with   the   friends." 

No  one  seemed  to  object  to  this  qualification;  but 
neither  did  any  one  stir  to  make  room  for  him.  Courtin 
was  therefore  obliged  to  make  further  advances. 


166  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Are  you  well,  gars  Aubin?"  he  asked,  addressing  the 
tavern-keeper. 

"As  you  see,"  replied  the  latter,  without  turning  his 
head. 

It  was  obvious  to  Courtin  that  he  was  not  received  with 
much  good-will  ;  but  he  was  not  a  man  to  disconcert  him- 
self for  a  trifle  like  that. 

"Here,  Mariette,"  said  he,  "give  me  a  stool,  that  I  may 
sit  down  near  your  uncle." 

"There  are  no  stools  left,  Maître  Courtin,"  replied  the 
girl.  "  I  should  think  your  eyes  were  good  enough  to  see 
that." 

"Well,  then,  your  uncle  will  give  me  his,"  continued 
Courtin,  with  audacious  familiarity,  though  at  heart  he 
felt  little  encouraged  by  the  behavior  of  the  landlord  and 
his  customers. 

"  If  you  will  have  it,"  grumbled  Aubin  Courte- Joie, 
"you  must,  being  as  how  I  am  master  of  the  house,  and  it 
shall  never  be  said  that  any  man  was  refused  a  seat  at  the 
Holly  Branch  when  he  wanted  to  sit  down." 

"Then  give  me  your  stool,  as  you  say,  smooth-tongue, 
for  there  's  the  very  man  I  'm  after,  right  next  to  you." 

"Who's  that?"  said  Aubin,  rising;  and  instantly  a 
dozen  other  stools  were  offered. 

"Jean  Oullier,"  replied  Courtin;  "and  it's  my  belief 
that  here  he  is." 

Hearing  his  name,  Jean  Oullier  rose  and  said,  in  a  tone 
that  was  almost  menacing  :  — 

"What  do  you  want  with  me?" 

"  Well,  well  !  you  need  n't  eat  me  up  because  I  want  to 
see  you,"  replied  the  mayor  of  la  Logerie.  "What  I  have 
to  say  is  of  more  importance  to  you  than  it  is  to  me." 

"Maître  Courtin,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  in  a  grave  tone, 
"  whatever  you  may  choose  to  pretend,  we  are  not  friends  ; 
and  what 's  more,  you  know  it  so  well  that  you  have  not 
Gotoe  here  with  any  good  intentions." 

"'Well,  you  are  mistaken,  gars  Oullier." 


THE   MAN   FROM   LA  LOGERIE.  167 

"Maître  Courtin,"  continued  Jean  Chillier,  paying  no 
attention  to  the  signs  which  Aubin  Courte-Joie  made, 
exhorting  him  to  prudence,  "Maître  Courtin,  ever  since 
we  have  known  each  other  you  have  been  a  Blue,  and  you 
bought  bad  property." 

"Bad  property!"  exclaimed  Courtin,  with  his  jeering 
smile. 

"Oh !  I  know  what  I  mean,  and  so  do  you.  I  mean  ill- 
gotten  property.  You  've  been  hand  and  glove  with  the 
curs  of  the  towns;  you  have  persecuted  the  peasantry  and 
the  villagers,  —  those  who  have  kept  their  faith  in  God 
and  the  king.  What  is  there  in  common  between  you,  who 
have  done  all  that,  and  me,  who  have  done  just  the  reverse?  " 

"True,"  replied  Courtin,  "true,  gars  Oullier,  I  have  not 
navigated  in  your  waters;  but,  for  all  that,  I  say  that 
neighbors  ought  not  to  wish  the  death  of  each  other.  I 
have  come  in  search  of  you  to  do  you  a  service;  I  '11  swear 
to  that." 

"I  don't  want  your  services,  Maître  Courtin,"  replied 
Jean  Oullier. 

"Why  not?  "  persisted  the  farmer. 

"Because  I  am  certain  they  hide  some  treachery." 

"So  you  refuse  to  listen  to  me?  " 

"I  refuse,"  replied  the  huntsman,  roughly. 

"You  are  wrong,"  said  Aubin  Courte- Joie,  in  a  low 
voice  ;  for  he  thought  the  frank,  outspoken  rudeness  of  his 
friend  a  mistaken  manœuvre. 

"Very  good,"  said  Courtin;  "then  remember  this.  If 
harm  comes  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  château  de  Souday, 
you  have  nobody  to  thank  but  yourself,  gars  Oullier." 

There  was  evidently  some  special  meaning  in  Courtin's 
manner  of  saying  the  word  "  inhabitants  ;  "  "  inhabitants  " 
of  course  included  guests.  Jean  Oullier  could  not  mistake 
this  meaning,  and  in  spite  of  his  habitual  self-command  he 
turned  pale.  He  regretted  he  had  been  so  decided,  but  it 
was  dangerous  now  to  retrace  his  steps.  If  Courtin  had 
suspicions,  such  a  retreat  would  confirm  them.     He  there- 


168  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

fore  did  his  best  to  master  his  emotion,  and  sat  down 
again,  turning  his  back  on  Courtin  with  an  indifferent  air; 
in  fact,  his  manner  was  so  careless  that  Courtin,  sly  dog 
as  he  was,  was  taken  in  by  it.  He  did  not  leave  the  tavern 
as  hastily  as  might  have  been  expected  after  delivering  his 
warning  threat;  on  the  contrary,  he  searched  his  pockets 
a  long  time  to  find  enough  change  to  pay  for  his  coffee. 
Aubin  Courte-Joie  understood  the  meaning  of  this  by-play, 
and  profited  by  Courtin's  lingering  to  put  in  a  word 
himself. 

"  My  good  Jean,  "  he  said,  addressing  Jean  Oullier  in  a 
hearty  way,  "we  have  long  been  friends,  and  have  fol- 
lowed the  same  road  for  many  years,  I  hope  —  here  are  two 
wooden  legs  that  prove  it.  Well,  I  am  not  afraid  to  say  to 
you,  before  Monsieur  Courtin,  that  you  are  wrong,  don't 
you  see,  wrong  !  So  long  as  a  hand  is  closed  none  but  a 
fool  will  say,  'I  know  what  is  in  it.'  It  is  true  that  Mon- 
sieur Courtin  "  (Aubin  Courte-Joie  punctiliously  gave  that 
title  to  the  mayor  of  la  Logerie)  "  has  never  been  one  of 
us  ;  but  neither  has  he  been  against  us.  He  has  been  for 
himself,  and  that  is  all  the  blame  we  can  put  upon  him. 
But  nowadays,  when  quarrels  are  over  and  there  are  neither 
Blues  nor  Chouans  any  more,  to-day  when,  thank  God, 
there  's  peace  in  the  land,  what  does  the  color  of  his  cock- 
ade signify  to  you?  Faith!  if  Monsieur  Courtin  has,  as  he 
says,  something  useful  to  tell  you  it  seems  to  me  a  pity  not 
to  hear  it." 

Jean  Oullier  shrugged  his  shoulders  impatiently. 

"  Old  fox  !  "  thought  Courtin,  who  was  far  too  well 
informed  as  to  the  real  state  of  things  to  be  taken  in  by 
the  pacific  flowers  of  rhetoric  with  which  Aubin  Courte- 
Joie  thought  proper  to  wreathe  his  remarks.  But  aloud 
he  said,  "  All  the  more  because  what  I  have  to  say  has 
nothing  to  do  with  politics." 

"There!  you  see,"  said  Courte- Joie,  "there  is  no  reason 
why  you  should  not  talk  with  the  mayor.  Come,  come,  sit 
down  here  and  have  a  talk  with  him  at  your  ease." 


THE    MAN    FROM    LA   LOGEKIE.  169 

All  tins  made  no  difference  in  Jean  Oullier,  who  was 
neither  mollified  toward  Courtin,  nor  did  he  even  turn  his 
head;  only,  when  the  mayor  sat  down  beside  him  he  did 
not  get  up  and  walk  away,  as  might  have  been  expected. 

"Gars  Oullier,"  said  Courtin,  byway  of  preamble,  "I 
think  talks  are  all  the  better  for  being  moistened.  'Wine 
is  the  honey  of  words,'  as  our  vicar  says,  — not  in  his  ser- 
mons, but  that  don't  make  it  less  true.  If  we  drink  a 
bottle  together  perhaps  that  will  sweeten  our  ideas." 

"As  you  please,"  replied  Jean  Oullier,  who,  while  feel- 
ing the  strongest  repugnance  to  hob-nob  with  Courtin, 
regarded  the  sacrifice  as  necessary  to  the  cause  he  had  at 
heart. 

"Have  you  any  wine?  "  said  Courtin  to  Mariette. 

"  What  a  question  !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  Have  we  any 
wine,  indeed!    I  should  think  so!" 

"Good  wine,  I  mean;  sealed  bottles." 

"Sealed  bottles,  yes,"  said  Mariette,  proudly;  "but  they 
cost  forty  sous  each." 

"Pooh!"  said  Aubin,  who  had  seated  himself  in  the 
other  chimney-corner  to  catch,  if  he  could,  some  scraps  of 
the  promised  communication,  "the  mayor  is  a  man  who 
has  got  the  wherewithal,  my  girl,  and  forty  sous  won't 
prevent  his  paying  his  rent  to  Madame  la  Baronne 
Michel." 

Courtin  regretted  his  show  of  liberality;  if  the  days  of 
the  old  war  were  really  coming  back  it  might  be  dangerous 
to  pass  for  rich. 

"Wherewithal!"  he  exclaimed;  "how  you  talk,  gars 
Aubin!  Yes,  certainly,  I  have  enough  to  pay  my  rent, 
but  that  paid  I  consider  myself  a  lucky  man  if  I  can  make 
both  ends  meet;  that 's  my  wealth!  " 

"Whether  you  are  rich  or  poor  is  none  of  our  business," 
remarked  Jean  Oullier.  "  Come,  what  have  you  to  say  to 
me?     Make  haste." 

Courtin  took  the  bottle  which  Mariette  now  brought 
him,    wiped   the   neck   of    it   carefully    with  his    sleeve, 


170  THE   LAST  VENDEE. 

poured  a  few  drops  into  his  own  glass,  filled  that  of  Jean 
Oullier,  then  his  own,  touched  glasses,  and  slowly  emptied 
his. 

"No  one  is  to  be  pitied,"  he  said,  smacking  his  lips,  "if 
they  can  drink  such  wine  as  that  every  day." 

"Especially  if  they  drink  it  with  a  clear  conscience," 
added  Jean  Oullier.  "In  my  opinion  that 's  what  makes 
wine  taste  good." 

"  Jean  Oullier,  "  said  Courtin,  without  noticing  the  philo- 
sophical reflection  of  his  companion,  "you  bear  me  ill-will, 
and  you  are  wrong.  On  my  word  of  honor,  you  are 
wrong." 

"Prove  it,  and  I'll  believe  you.  That's  all  the  confi- 
dence I  have  in  you." 

"I  don't  wish  you  harm;  I  wish  good  for  myself,  as 
Aubin  Courte-Joie,  who  is  a  man  of  judgment,  said  just 
now;  but  you  don't  call  that  a  crime,  I  hope.  I  mind  my 
own  little  matters  without  meddling  much  in  other  peo- 
ple's business,  because,  as  I  say  to  myself,  'My  good  fel- 
low, if  at  Easter  or  Christmas  you  have  n't  got  your  money 
ready  in  your  pouch  the  king,  be  he  Henri  V.  or  Louis 
Philippe,  will  send  the  Treasury  after  you,  and  you  '11  get 
a  ]  taper  in  his  name,  which  may  be  an  honor,  but  it  will 
cost  you  dear.'  You  reason  differently  ;  that 's  your  affair. 
I  don't  blame  you,  — at  the  most  I  only  pity  you." 

"Keep  your  pity  for  others,  Maître  Courtin,"  replied 
Jean  Oullier,  haughtily;  "I  don't  want  it  any  more  than 
I  want  your  confidences." 

"When  I  say  I  pity  you,  gars  Oullier,  I  mean  your 
master  as  well  as  yourself.  Monsieur  le  marquis  is  a  man 
I  respect.  He  fought  through  the  great  war.  Well,  what 
did  he  gain  by  it?  " 

"Maître  Courtin,  you  said  you  were  not  going  to  talk 
politics,  and  you  are  breaking  your  word." 

"Yes,  I  did  say  so,  that 's  true;  but  it  is  not  my  fault  if 
in  this  devilish  country  politics  are  so  twisted  in  with 
everybody's  business  that  the  one  can't  be  separated  from 


THE   MAN   FEOM   LA   LOGERIK.  171 

the  other.  As  I  was  saying,  gars  Oullier,  Monsieur  le 
marquis  is  a  man  I  respect,  and  I  am  very  sorry,  very  sorry 
indeed,  to  see  him  ridden  over  by  a  lot  of  common  rich 
folks,  — he  who  used  to  be  the  first  in  the  province." 

"If  he  is  satisfied  with  his  lot  why  need  you  care?" 
replied  Jean  Oullier.  "You  never  heard  him  complain; 
he  has  never  borrowed  money  of  you.  " 

"  What  would  you  say  to  a  man  who  offered  to  restore 
to  the  château  de  Souday  all  the  wealth  and  consideration 
it  has  lost?  Come,"  continued  Courtin,  not  hindered  by 
the  coldness  of  the  Chouan,  "  do  you  think  that  a  man  who 
is  ready  to  do  that  can  be  your  enemy?  Don't  you  think, 
on  the  contrary,  that  Monsieur  le  marquis  would  owe  him 
a  debt  of  gratitude?  There,  now,  answer  that  question 
squarely  and  honestly,  as  I  have  spoken  to  you." 

"  Of  course  he  would,  if  the  man  you  speak  of  did  what 
you  say  by  honest  means;  but  I  doubt  it." 

"Honest  means!  Would  any  one  dare  propose  to  you 
any  that  were  not  honest?  "  See  here,  my  gars!  I  '11  out 
with  it  at  once,  and  not  take  all  day  and  many  words  to 
say  it.  I .  can,  —  yes,  I,  who  speak  to  you,  —  I  can  make 
the  money  flow  into  the  château  de  Souday,  as  it  has  n't 
done  of  late  years  ;  only  —  " 

"Only  —  yes,  that's  it;  only  what?  Ha!  that  '  s  where 
the  collar  galls." 

"  Only,  1  was  going  to  say,  T  must  get  my  profit  out  of  it." 

"If  the  matter  is  an  honest  one,  that's  only  fair;  you 
will  certainly  get  your  part." 

"  That 's  all  I  want  to  know  to  set  the  wheel  in  motion, 
—  and  it 's  little  enough,  too." 

"Yes;  but  what  is  it  you  are  after?  What  is  it  you 
ask?"  returned  Jean  Oullier,  now  very  curious  to  know 
what  was  in  Courtin's  head. 

"Oh!  it  is  just  as  simple  as  nothing.  In  the  first  pla.ce, 
I  want  it  so  arranged  that  I  need  n't  renew  my  lease  or 
have  any  rent  to  pay  for  twelve  years  to  come  on  the  farm 
I  occupy." 


172  THE   LAST    VENDEE. 

"In  other  words,  you  want  a  present?" 

"  If  Monsieur  de  iSouday  offers  it  I  shall  not  refuse,  you 
understand.  Of  course  I  should  n't  be  such  a  fool  as  to 
stand  in  my  own  light." 

"But  how  can  it  be  arranged?  Your  farm  belongs  to 
young  Michel  or  his  mother.  I  have  not  heard  that  they 
want  to  sell  it.  How  can  any  man  give  you  that  which 
he  doesn't  possess?" 

"Oh!"  said  Courtin,  "if  I  interfere  in  the  matter  I 
speak  of  perhaps  that  farm  may  soon  belong  to  some  of 
you,  and  then  it  would  be  easy  enough.  What  do  you 
say?  " 

"  I  say  I  don't  understand  what  you  are  talking  about, 
Maître  Courtin." 

"Nonsense!  Ha,  ha!  but  it  isn't  a  bad  match  for  our 
young  man.  Don't  you  know  that  besides  La  Logerie  he 
o^ns  the  estate  of  la  Coudraie,  the  mills  at  La  Ferron- 
nerie, the  woods  of  Gervaise,  all  of  which  bring  in,  one 
year  with  another,  a  pretty  sum  of  money?  And  I  can 
tell  you  this,  the  old  baroness  has  laid  by  as  much  more, 
which  he  will  get  at  her  death." 

"  What  has  that  Michel  youth  to  do  with  the  Marquis  de 
Souday?  they  have  nothing  in  common,"  said  Jean  Oullier. 
"And  why  should  the  property  of  your  master  be  of  any 
interest  to  mine?  " 

"Come,  come,  let's  play  above-board,  gars  Oullier. 
Damn  it!  you  must  have  seen  that  our  young  man  is 
sweet  upon  one  of  your  young  ladies,  very  sweet,  indeed  ! 
Which  of  them  it  is,  I  can't  tell  you;  but  let  Monsieur  le 
marquis  just  say  the  word  and  sign  me  a  paper  about  that 
farm,  and  the  minute  the  girl,  whichever  it  is,  is  married, 
—  they  are  as  smart  as  flies,  those  two,  —  she  can  manage 
her  husband  as  she  likes  and  get  all  she  wants.  He  '11 
never  refuse  her  a  few  acres  of  ground,  especially  when 
she  wants  to  give  them  to  a  man  to  whom  he  '11  be  grate- 
ful, too.  In  this  way  I  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone,  do 
your  business  and  my  own  too.     There  is  but  one  obsta- 


THE   MAN   FROM   LA   LOGERIE.  173 

cle,  and  that 's  the  mother.  Well,"  added  Courtin,  leaning 
close  to  Oullier's  ear,  ''I  '11  undertake  to  get  rid  of  that." 

Jean  Oullier  made  no  answer;  but  he  looked  fixedly  at 
his  companion. 

"Yes,"  continued  the  latter,  "if  everybody  wishes  it, 
Madame  la  baronne  won't  be  able  to  refuse  it.  I  '11  tell 
you  this,  Oullier,"  added  Courtin,  striking  the  other 
familiarly  on  the  knee,  "1  know  the  whole  story  of 
Monsieur  Michel." 

"  Why  should  you  want  our  help,  then?  What  hinders 
you  from  getting  all  you  want  out  of  her  without  delay?" 

"What  hinders  me  is  this:  I  want  to  add  to  the  word 
of  a  youth  who,  while  keeping  his  sheep,  heard  a  treacher- 
ous bargain  made,  —  I  want  to  add  to  his  word  the  testi- 
mony of  the  man  who  was  in  the  woods  of  La  Chabotière 
some  forty  years  ago,  and  saw  the  price  of  that  bloody  and 
treacherous  bargain  paid.  You  know  best  who  saw  that 
sight  and  Who  can  give  that  testimony,  gars  Oullier.  If 
you  and  I  make  common  cause,  the  baroness  will  be  as 
supple  as  a  handful  of  flax.  She  is  miserly,  but  she  is 
also  proud;  the  fear  of  public  dishonor  and  the  gossip  of 
the  neighborhood  will  make  her  docile  enough.  She  '11 
see  that,  after  all,  Mademoiselle  de  Souday,  poor  and 
illegitimate  as  she  is,  is  more  than  a  match  for  the  son  of 
Baron  Michel,  whose  grandfather  was  a  peasant  like  our- 
selves, and  whose  father  the  baron  was  — ■  you  know  what. 
Enough!  Your  young  lady  will  be  rich,  our  young  man 
will  be  happy,  and  I  shall  be  very  glad.  What  objection 
can  be  offered  to  all  that?  —  not  to  speak  of  our  becoming 
friends,  gars  Oullier;  and  I  think  my  friendship  is  worth 
something  to  you,  I  must  say." 

"Your  friendship?  "  replied  Jean  Oullier,  who  had 
repressed  with  great  difficulty  the  indignation  he  felt  at 
the  singular  proposal  that  Courtin  had  just  made  to  him. 

"Yes,  my  friendship,"  returned  the  latter.  "You 
need  n't  shake  your  head  like  that.  I  have  told  you  that 
I  know  more  than  any  man  about  the  life  of  Baron  Michel; 


174  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

I  will  add  that  I  know  more  than  any  man  but  one  about 
his  death.  I  was  one  of  the  beaters  of  the  drive  at  which 
he  was  killed,  and  my  post  placed  me  just  opposite  to  him. 
I  was  young,  and  even  then  I  had  a  habit  (which  God 
preserve  to  me)  of  not  gabbling  unless  it  were  my  interest 
to  do  so.  Now,  then,  do  you  think  my  services  to  your 
party  of  no  account  if  my  interests  take  me  over  to  your 
side?  " 

"Maître  Courtin,"  replied  Jean  Oullier,  frowning,  "I 
have  no  influence  on  the  plans  and  determinations  of  the 
Marquis  de  Souday,  but  if  I  had  any  at  all,  even  the  small- 
est, never  should  that  farm  of  yours  come  into  the  family; 
and  if  it  did  come  in,  never  should  it  serve  as  the  price  of 
treachery." 

"Fine  words,  all  that!  "  exclaimed  Courtin. 

"  No  ;  poor  as  the  Demoiselles  de  Souday  may  be,  never 
do  I  want  either  of  them  to  marry  the  young  man  you 
speak  of.  Rich  as  he  may  be,  and  even  if  he  bore  another 
name  than  he  does,  no  Demoiselle  de  Souday  could  buy 
her  marriage  by  a  base  act." 

"You  call  that  a  base  act,  do  you?  I  call  it  a  good 
stroke  of  business." 

"  It  may  be  so  for  you;  but  for  those  I  serve,  a  marriage 
with  Monsieur  Michel,  bought  through  you,  would  be 
more  than  a  base  act;  it  would  be  an  infamy." 

"Take  care,  Jean  Oullier.  I  want  to  act  a  kind  part, 
and  I  won't  let  myself  quarrel  with  the  label  you  choose  to 
stick  upon  my  acts.  I  came  here  with  good  intentions;  it 
is  for  you  not  to  let  me  leave  this  place  with  bad  ones." 

"I  care  as  little  for  your  threats  as  I  do  for  }rour  pro- 
posals, Courtin;  remember  that.  But  if  you  force  me  to 
repeat  it  I  shall  say  it  to  the  end  of  time." 

"  Once  more,  Jean  Oullier,  listen  to  me.  I  will  admit 
to  you  that  I  want  to  be  rich.  That  is  my  whim,  just  as 
it  is  yours  to  be  faithful  as  a  dog  to  folks  who  don't  care 
more  for  you  than  you  do  for  your  terrier.  I  thought  I 
could  be  useful  to  your  master,  and  I  hoped  he  would  not 


THE    MAN    FROM   LA   LOGEME.  175 

let  my  services  go  without  reward.  You  say  it  is  impossi- 
ble. Then  we  '11  say  no  more  about  it.  But  if  the  nobl<  a 
whom  you  serve  wished  to  show  their  gratitude  to  me  in 
the  way  I  ask  I  would  rather  do  a  service  to  them  than  to 
others;  and  I  desire  to  tell  you  so  once  more." 

"  Because  you  think  that  nobles  would  pay  more  for  it 
than  others.     Is  n't  that  it?  " 

"Undoubtedly,  gars  Oullier.  I  don't  conceal  anything 
from  you,  and  I  '11  repeat  that,  as  you  say,  to  the  end  of 
time." 

"I  shall  not  make  myself  the  go-between  in  any  such 
bargain,  Maître  Courtin.  Besides,  I  have  no  power  in  the 
matter,  and  anything  I  could  do  for  you  is  so  small  it 
isn't  worth  talking  about." 

"Hey,  how  do  you  know  that?  You  didn't  know,  my 
gars,  that  I  knew  all  about  what  happened  in  the  wood  at 
Chabotière.  Perhaps  I  could  astonish  you  if  I  told  you 
all  I  know." 

Jean  Oullier  was  afraid  of  appearing  afraid. 

"Come,"  said  he,  "enough  of  this.  If  you  want  to  sell 
yourself  apply  to  others.  Such  bargains  are  hateful  to 
me,  even  if  I  had  any  means  of  making  them.  They  don't 
concern  me,  God  be  thanked." 

"Is  that  your  last  word,  Jean  Oullier?" 

"My  first  and  my  last.  Go  your  ways,  Maître  Courtin, 
and  leave  me  to  mine." 

"So  much  the  worse  for  you,*'  said  Courtin,  rising; 
"but,  on  my  word,  I  would  gladly  have  gone  your  way." 

So  saying,  he  nodded  to  Jean  Oullier  and  went  out.  He 
had  hardly  crossed  the  threshold  before  Aubin  Courte- 
Joie,  stumping  along  on  his  wooden  legs,  came  close  to 
Jean  Oullier. 

"You  have  done  a  foolish  thing,"  he  whispered. 

"What  ought  I  to  have  done?  " 

"Taken  him  to  Louis  Renaud  or  to  Gaspard;  they  would 
have  bought  him." 

"Him,  — that  wicked  traitor?" 


176  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  My  good  Jean,  in  1815,  when  I  was  mayor,  I  went  to 

Nantes,  and  there  I  saw  a  man  named ,  who  was,  or 

had  been,  a  minister;  and  I  heard  him  say  two  things  I 
have  always  remembered.  One  was  that  traitors  make  and 
unmake  empires;  the  other  was  that  treachery  is  the  only 
thing  in  this  world  that  is  not  to  be  measured  by  the  size 
of  him  who  makes  it." 

"  What  do  you  advise  me  to  do  now  ?  " 

"Follow  and  watch  him." 

Jean  Oullier  reflected  a  moment.     Then  he  rose. 

"I  think  you  are  right,"  he  said. 

And  he  went  out  anxiously. 


THE    FAIK   AT   MONTAIUU.  177 


XIX. 


THE    FAIR    Aï    MONTAIGU. 


The  effervescent  state  of  minds  in  the  west  of  France  did 
not  take  the  government  unawares.  Political  faith  had 
grown  too  lukewarm  to  allow  a  probable  uprising,  cover- 
ing so  large  an  extent  of  territory  and  involving  so  many 
conspirators,  to  remain  long  a  secret. 

Some  time  before  Madame 's  arrival  off  the  coast  of 
Provence  the  authorities  in  Paris  knew  of  the  projected 
scheme,  and  repressive  measures  both  prompt  and  vigorous 
had  been  arranged.  No  sooner  was  it  evident  that  the 
princess  was  making  her  way  to  the  western  provinces 
than  it  was  only  a  question  of  carrying  out  those  measures 
and  of  putting  the  execution  of  them  into  safe  and  able 
hands. 

The  departments  whose  uprising  was  expected  were 
divided  into  as  many  military  districts  as  there  were  sub- 
prefectures.  Each  of  these  arrondissements,  commanded 
by  a  chief  of  battalion,  was  the  centre  of  several  secondary 
cantonments  commanded  by  captains,  around  which  sev- 
eral minor  detachments  were  encamped  under  command  of 
lieutenants  and  sub-lieutenants,  serving  as  guards  and  out- 
posts into  the  interior  districts  as  far  as  the  safety  of 
communications  would  permit. 

Montaigu,  in  the  arrondissement  of  Clisson,  had  its  gar- 
rison, which  consisted  of  a  company  of  the  32d  regiment 
of  the  line.  The  day  on  which  the  events  we  have  now 
related  occurred  this  garrison  had  been  reinforced  by  two 
brigades  of  gendarmerie,  which  had  reached  Nantes  that 
morning,  and  about  a  score  of   mounted  chasseurs.     The 

VOL.  I.  — 12 


178  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

chasseurs  were  serving  as  escort  to  a  general  officer  from 
the  garrison  at  Nantes,  who  was  on  a  tour  of  inspection 
of  the  various  detachments.  This  was  General  Dermon- 
court. 

The  inspection  of  the  Montaigu  garrison  was  over. 
Dermoncourt,  a  veteran  as  intelligent  as  he  was  energetic, 
thought  it  would  not  be  out  of  place  to  inspect  those  whom 
he  called  his  old  Vendéan  friends,  now  swarming  into  the 
streets  and  market-place  of  the  town.  He  accordingly 
book  off  his  uniform,  put  on  citizen's  clothes,  and  mingled 
with  the  crowds,  accompanied  by  a  member  of  the  civil 
administration  who  happened  to  be  at  Montaigu  at  that 
moment. 

The  general  bearing  of  the  population  though  lowering 
was  calm.  The  crowd  opened  to  allow  passage  to  the  two 
gentlemen,  and,  although  the  martial  carriage  of  the  gên- 
er;'], his  heavy  moustache,  black,  in  spite  of  his  sixty 
,  his  scarred  face,  and  the  self-sufficient  air  of  his 
companion,  excited  the  inquisitive  curiosity  of  the  multi- 
tude, no  hostile  demonstration  was  made  to  them. 

"Well,  well,"  said  the  general,  "my  old  friends  the 
Vendéans  are  not  much  changed.  I  find  them  as  uncom- 
municative as  I  left  them  thirty -eight  years  ago." 

"Tome  such  indifference  seems  a  favorable  sign,"  said 
the  civil  administrator,  in  a  pompous  tone.  "The  two 
months  I  have  just  passed  in  Paris,  where  there  was  a  riot 
every  day,  gave  me  an  experience  in  such  matters,  and  I 
think  I  may  safely  assert  that  these  people  here  show  no 
signs  of  insurrection.  Remark,  general,  that  there  are  no 
knots  of  talkers,  no  orators  in  full  blast,  no  animation, 
no  mutterings  ;  all  is  perfectly  quiet.  Come,  come  !  these 
people  are  here  for  their  business  only,  and  have  no 
thought  of  anything  else,  I  '11  answer  for  it." 

"You  are  quite  right,  my  dear  sir;  I  am  wholly  of  your 
mind.  These  worthy  people,  as  you  say,  are  thinking  of 
absolutely  nothing  but  their  business  ;  but  that  business  is 
to  distribute  to  the  best  advantage  the   leaden  balls  and 


THE  FAIR   AT   MONTAIGU.  179 

the  sabre-blades  they  keep  hidden  away  out  of  sight,  which 
they  intend  to  bestow  upon  us  as  soon  as  possible." 

"Do  you  really  think  so?  " 

"I  don't  think  so,  I  am  sure  of  it.  If  the  religious 
element  were  not,  fortunately  for  us,  absent  from  this  new 
uprising,  a  fact  which  makes  me  think  it  may  not  be  gen- 
eral, I  should  confidently  assure  you  that  there  is  not  one 
of  those  fellows  you  see  over  there  in  serge  jackets  and 
linen  breeches  and  wooden  shoes  but  lias  his  post  and  rank 
and  number  in  battalions  raised  by  Messieurs  the  nobles.'" 

"What!  those  tramps  and  beggars  too?  " 

"Yes,  those  tramps  and  beggars  especially.  What 
characterizes  this  warfare,  my  good  sir,  is  the  fact  that 
we  have  to  do  with  an  enemy  who  is  everywhere  and 
nowhere.  You  know  he  is  there  ;  you  seek  for  him,  and 
you  find  only  a  peasant  like  those  about  us,  who  bows  to 
you,  a  beggar  who  holds  out  his  hand,  a  pedler  who  offers 
his  merchandise,  a  musician  who  rasps  your  ears  with  his 
hurdy-gurdy,  a  quack  who  vaunts  his  medicine,  a  little 
shepherd  who  smiles  at  you,  a  woman  suckling  her  child 
on  the  threshold  of  her  cottage,  a  harmless  furze-bush 
growing  beside  the  road.  You  pass  them  all  without  the 
slightest  feeling  of  distrust,  and  yet,  peasant,  shepherd, 
beggar,  musician,  pedler,  quack,  and  woman  are  the 
enemy.  Even  the  furze-bush  is  in  league  with  them. 
Some,  creeping  through  the  gorse,  will  follow  you  like 
your  shadow,  — indefatigable  spies  that  they  are!  —  and  at 
the  first  alarming  manœuvre  on  your  part,  those  you  are 
tracking  are  warned  long  before  you  are  able  to  surprise 
them.  Others  will  have  picked  up  from  the  hedges  and 
ditches  and  furrows  their  rusty  guns  conce  ded  among  the 
reeds  or  the  long  grass,  and  if  you  are  worth  the  trouble, 
they  will  follow  you,  as  the  others  did,  from  bush  to  bush 
and  cover  to  cover,  till  they  find  some  favorable  oppor- 
tunity for  a  sure  aim.  They  are  saving  with  their  powder. 
'The  furze-bush  will  send  you  a  shot,  and  if  by  chance  it 
misses  you,  and  you  are  able  to  examine  the  covert,  you  '11 


180  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

find  nothing  there  but  a  tangle  of  branches,  thorns,  and 
leaves.  That 's  what  it  is  to  be  inoffensive  in  these  regions, 
my  good  sir." 

"Are  not  you  exaggerating,  general?"  said  the  civil 
officer,  with  a  doubting  air. 

"Heavens  and  earth,  Monsieur  le  sous-préfet!  perhaps 
you  '11  come  to  know  it  by  experience.  Here  we  are  in 
the  midst  of  an  apparently  pacific  crowd.  We  have,  you 
say.  nothing  but  friends  about  us,  Frenchmen,  compatriots; 
well,  just  arrest  one  of  those  fellows  —  " 

"  What  would  happen  if  1  arrested  him?  " 

"  It  would  happen  that  some  one  of  the  rest,  —  perhaps 
that  young  gars  in  a  white  smock,  perhaps  this  beggar  who 
is  eating  with  such  an  appetite  on  the  sill  of  that  doorway, 
who  may  be,  for  all  we  know,  Diot  Jambe-d' Argent,  or 
Bras-de-fer,  or  any  other  leader  of  the  band,  —  will  rise 
and  make  a  sign.  At  that  sign  a  dozen  or  more  sticks, 
now  peacefully  carried  about,  will  be  down  on  our  heads, 
and  before  my  escort  could  get  to  our  assistance  we  should 
be  as  flat  as  wheat  beneath  the  sickle.  You  are  not  con- 
vinced?    Then  suppose  you  make  the  attempt." 

"No,  no;  I  believe  you,  general,"  cried  the  sub-prefect, 
eagerly.  "The  devil!  all  this  is  no  joke.  Ever  since  you 
have  been  enlightening  me  I  fancy  I  see  the  scowls  on 
their  faces;   they  look  like  scoundrels." 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it  !  They  are  worthy  people,  very  worthy 
fellows;  only,  you  must  know  how  to  take  them;  and, 
unluckily,  that  is  not  always  the  case  with  those  who  are 
sent  to  manage  them,"  said  the  general,  with  a  sarcastic 
smile.  "Do  you  want  a  specimen  of  their  conversation? 
You  are,  or  you  have  been,  or  you  ought  to  have  been  a 
lawyer;  but  I  '11  bet  you  never  met  in  all  your  experience 
of  the  profession  fellows  as  clever  at  talking  without  say- 
ing anything  as  these  Vendéan  peasants.  Hey,  gars  !  "  con- 
tinued the  general,  addressing  a  peasant  between  thirty-five 
and  forty  years  old,  who  was  hovering  about  them,  and 
examining,  apparently  with  curiosity,  a  biscuit  which  he 


THE   FAIR   AT   MONTAIGU.  181 

held  in  his  hand,  —  "  Hey,  gars,  show  me  where  those  good 
biscuits  are  sold;  they  look  to  me  very  tempting." 

"They  are  not  sold,  monsieur;  they  are  given  away." 

"Bless  me!     Well,  I  want  one." 

"It  is  curious,"  said  the  peasant,  "very  curious  that 
good  white  wheat  biscuits  should  be  given  away,  when  they 
might  so  easily  be  sold." 

"Yes,  very  singular;  but  what  is  still  more  singular  is 
that  the  first  individual  I  happen  to  address  not  only 
answers  my  question,  but  anticipates  those  I  might  ask 
him.     Show  me  that  biscuit,   my  good  man." 

The  general  examined  the  article  which  the  peasant 
handed  to  him.  It  was  a  plain  biscuit  made  of  flour  and 
milk,  on  which,  before  it  was  baked,  a  cross  and  four 
parallel  bars  had  been  marked  with  a  knife. 

"The  devil!  Well!  a  present  that  is  amusing  as  well 
as  useful  is  good  to  get.  There  must  be  a  riddle  of  some 
kind  in  those  marks.  Who  gave  you  that  biscuit,  my 
good  friend?  " 

"No  one;  they  don't  trust  me." 

"Ah!  then  you  are  a  patriot?  " 

"  I  am  mayor  of  my  district,  and  I  hold  by  the  govern- 
ment. I  saw  a  woman  giving  a  lot  of  these  biscuit  to  men 
from  Machecoul,  without  their  asking  for  them  and  without 
their  giving  her  anything  in  return.  So  then  I  offered  to 
buy  one,  and  she  dared  not  refuse.  I  bought  two.  I  ate 
one  before  her,  and  the  other,  this  one,  I  slipped  into  my 
pocket." 

"  Will  you  let  me  have  it?  I  am  making  a  collection  of 
rebuses,  and  this  one  seems  interesting." 

"I  will  give  it  or  sell  it,  as  you  please." 

"  Ah,  ha  !  "  exclaimed  Dermoncourt,  looking  at  the  man 
with  more  attention  than  he  had  paid  to  him  hitherto, 
"I  think  I  understand  you.  You  can  explain  these 
hieroglyphics?  " 

"  Perhaps  ;  at  any  rate,  I  can  give  you  other  information 
that  is  not  to  be  despised." 


182  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"And  you  wish  to  be  paid  for  it?  " 

"Of  course  I  do,"  replied  the  peasant,  boldly. 

"  That  is  how  you  serve  the  government  which  made  you 
mayor?  " 

"The  devil!  Has  the  government  put  a  tiled  roof  on 
my  house?  No!  Has  it  changed  the  mud  walls  to  stone? 
No  !  My  house  is  thatched  with  straw  and  built  of  wood 
and  mud.  The  Chouans  could  set  fire  to  it  in  a  minute, 
and  it  would  burn  to  ashes.  Whoso  risks  much  ought  to 
earn  much;  for,  as  you  see,  I  might  lose  my  all  in  a  single 
night." 

"You  are  right.  Come,  Monsieur  le  sous-préfet,  this 
belongs  to  your  department.  Thank  God,  I  'm  only  a 
soldier,  and  my  supplies  are  paid  for  before  delivery. 
Pay  this  man  and  hand  his  information  over  to  me." 

"And  do  it  quickly,"  said  the  farmer,  "for  we  are 
watched  on  all  sides." 

The  peasants  had,  in  fact,  drawn  nearer  and  nearer  to 
the  little  group.  Without,  apparently,  any  other  motive 
than  the  curiosity  which  all  strangers  in  a  country  place 
naturally  excite,  they  had  formed  a  tolerably  compact 
circle  round  the  three  speakers.  The  general  took  notice 
of  it. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  he  said  aloud,  addressing  the  sub- 
prefect,  "  I  would  n't  rely  on  that  man's  word,  if  I  were 
you.  He  offers  to  sell  you  two  hundred  sacks  of  oats  at 
nineteen  francs  the  sack,  but  it  remains  to  be  seen  when 
he  will  deliver  them.  Give  him  a  small  sum  down  and 
make  him  sign  a  promise  of  delivery." 

"But  I  have  neither  paper  nor  pencil,"  said  the  sub- 
prefect,  understanding  the  general's  meaning. 

"Go  to  the  hotel,  hang  it!  Come,"  said  the  general, 
looking  about  him,  "are  there  any  others  here  who  have 
oats  to  sell?     We  have  horses  to  feed." 

One  peasant  answered  in  the  affirmative,  and  while  the 
general  was  discussing  the  price  with  him  the  sub-prefect 
and  the  man  with   the  biscuit  slipped  away,  almost   un- 


THE    FAIR   AT   MONTAIGU.  183 

noticed.  The  man,  as  our  readers  are  of  course  aware, 
was  no  other  than  Courtin.  Let  us  now  try  to  explain  the 
manœuvres  which  Courtin  had  executed  since  morning. 
After  his  interview  with  Michel,  Courtin  had  reflected 
long.  It  seemed  to  him  that  a  plain  and  simple  denuncia- 
tion of  the  visitors  at  the  chateau  de  Sunday  was  not  the 
course  most  profitable  to  his  interests.  Jt  might  very  well 
be  that  the  government  would  leave  its  subordinate  agents 
without  reward,  in  which  case  the  act  was  dangerous  and 
without  profit;  for,  of  course,  Courtin  would  draw  down 
upon  him  the  enmity  of  the  royalists,  who  were  the  major- 
ity of  the  canton.  It  was  then  that  he  thought  of  the  little 
scheme  we  heard  him  propound  to  Jean  Oullier.  He  hoped 
by  assisting  the  loves  of  the  young  baron  to  draw  a  pretty 
penny  to  himself,  to  win  the  good  will  of  the  marquis, 
whose  ambition  must  be,  as  he  thought,  to  obtain  such  a 
marriage  for  his  daughter,  and,  finally,  to  sell  at  a  great 
price  his  silence  as  to  the  presence  of  a  personage  whose 
safety,  if  he  were  not  mistaken,  was  of  the  utmost  conse- 
quence to  the  royalist  party. 

We  have,  seen  how  Jean  Oullier  received  his  advances. 
It  was  then  that  Courtin,  considering  himself  to  have 
failed  in  what  he  regarded  as  an  excellent  scheme,  decided 
on  contenting  himself  with  a  lesser,  and  made  the  move 
we  have  now  related  toward  the  government. 


184  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XX. 


THE    OUTBREAK. 


Half  an  hour  after  the  conference  of  the  sub-prefect  and 
Courtin  a  gendarme  was  making  his  way  among  the  groups, 
looking  for  the  general,  whom  he  found  talking  very  ami- 
cably with  a  respectable  old  beggar  in  rags.  The  gen- 
darme said  a  word  in  the  general's  ear,  and  the  latter  at 
once  made  his  way  to  the  little  inn  of  the  Cheval  Blanc. 
The  sub-prefect  stood  in  the  doorway. 

"Well?"  asked  the  general,  noticing  the  highly  satis- 
fied look  on  the  face  of  the  public  functionary. 

"Ah,  general!  great  news  and  good  news!  "  replied  the 
sub-prefect. 

"Let's  hear  it." 

"The  man  I  've  had  to  deal  with  is  really  very  clever." 

"Fine  news,  indeed!  they  are  all  very  clever.  The 
greatest  fool  among  them  could  give  points  to  Monsieur  de 
Talleyrand.      What  has  he  told  you,  this  clever  man?" 

"  He  saw  the  Comte  de  Bonneville,  disguised  as  a  peas- 
ant, enter  the  château  de  Souday  last  night,  and  with  the 
count  was  another  little  peasant,  whom  he  thinks  was  a 
woman  —  " 

"  What  next?  " 

"Next!  why  there  's  no  doubt,  general." 

"Go  on,  monsieur;  I  am  all  impatience,"  said  the  gen- 
eral, in  the  calmest  tone. 

"I  mean  to  say  that  in  my  opinion  the  woman  is  no 
other  than  the  one  we  have  been  told  to  look  out  for,  — ■ 
namely,  the  princess." 


THE   OUTBREAK.  185 

"There  may  be  no  doubt  for  you;  there  are  a  dozen 
doubts  for  me." 

"Why.  so,  general?" 

"Because  I,  too,  have  had  some  confidences." 

"Voluntary  or  involuntary?" 

"Who  knows,  with  these  people?" 

"  Pooh  !     But  what  did  they  tell  you?  " 

"They  told  me  nothing." 

"Well,  what  then?" 

"Then,  after  you  left  me  I  went  on  bargaining  for  oats." 

"Yes.     What  next?" 

"  Next,  the  peasant  who  spoke  to  me  asked  for  earnest- 
money;  that  was  fair.  I  asked  him  for  a  receipt;  that 
was  fair,  too.  He  wanted  to  go  to  a  shop  and  write  it. 
'jSTo,'  I  said.  'Here's  a  pencil;  haven't  you  a  scrap  of 
paper  about  you?  My  hat  will  do  fora  table.'  He  tore 
off  the  back  of  a  letter  and  gave  me  a  receipt.  There  it  is. 
Bead  it." 

The  sub-prefect  took  the  paper,  and  read;  — 

"  Received,  of  M.  Jean-Louis  Robier,  the  sum  of  fifty  francs,  on 
account,  for  thirty  sacks  of  flour,  which  I  engage  to  deliver  to  him 
May  28. 

F.  Terrien. 

May  14,  1832. 

"  Well,"  said  the  sub-prefect,  "  I  don't  see  any  information 
there." 

"Turn  over  the  paper." 

"Ah,  ha!"  exclaimed  the  functionary. 

The  paper  which  he  held  was  one  half  of  a  page  of  letter 
paper  torn  through  the  middle.  On  the  other  side  from 
that  on  which  the  receipt  was  written  were  these  words  :  — > 

arquis 

ceived  this  instant  the  news 
her  whom  we  are  expecting. 
Beanfays,  evening  of  26th 
send  officers  of  your  division 
presented  to  Madame. 


186  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

your  people  in.  hand. 

respectfully, 

oux. 

"The  devil!"  cried  the  sub-prefect;  "that  is  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  a  call  to  arms.  It  is  easy  enough  to 
make  out  the  rest." 

"Nothing  easier,"  said  the  general.  Then  he  added,  in 
a  low  voice,  "Too  easy,  perhaps." 

"  Ah,  ça  !  did  n't  you  tell  me  these  people  were  sly  and 
cautious?  I  call  this,  on  the  contrary,  a  bit  of  innocent 
carelessness  which  is  amazing." 

"Wait,"  said  Derinoncourt;  "that 's  not  all." 

"Ah,  ha!" 

"  After  parting  with  my  seller  of  oats  I  met  a  beggar, 
half  an  idiot.  I  talked  to  him  about  the  good  God  and  the 
saints  and  the  Virgin,  about  the  buckwheat  and  the  apple 
year  (you  observe  that  the  apple-trees  are  in  bloom),  and 
I  ended  by  asking  him  if  he  could  not  act  as  guide  for  us 
to  Loroux,  where,  as  you  know,  I  am  to  make  an  inspec- 
tion. 'I  can't,'  said  my  idiot,  with  a  mischievous  look. 
'  Why  not?  '  I  asked  in  the  stupidest  way  I  could.  'Because 
I  am  ordered  to  guide  a  lady  and  two  gentlemen  from  Puy- 
Laurens  to  La  Flocelière.'  " 

"The  devil!  here  's  a  complication." 

"On  the  contrary,  enlightenment." 

"Explain." 

"Confidences  which  are  given  when  not  extorted,  in  a 
region  where  it  is  so  difficult  to  get  them,  seem  to  me 
such  clumsy  traps  that  an  old  fox  like  myself  ought  to  be 
ashamed  to  be  caught  by  them.  The  Duchesse  de  Berry, 
if  she  is  really  in  La  Vendée,  cannot  be  at  Souday  and 
Beaufays  and  Puy-Laurens  at  the  same  time.  What  do 
you  think,   my  dear  sub-prefect?  " 

"Confound  it  all!  "  replied  the  public  functionary, 
scratching  his  head,  "  I  think  she  may  have  been,  or  still 
may  be,  in  all  those  places,  one  after  another;  but  if  I 
were  you,  instead  of  chasing  her  round  from  place  to  place, 


THE   OUTBREAK.  187 

where  she  may  or  may  not  have  been,  I  should  go  straight 
to  La  Flocelière,  where  your  idiot  is  to  take  her  to-day." 

"Then  you  would  make  a  very  poor  bloodhound,  my 
dear  fellow.  The  only  reliable  information  we  have  so 
far  received  is  that  given  by  the  scamp  who  had  the  bis- 
cuit,  and  whom  you  examined  here  —  " 

"But  the  others?" 

"I  '11  bet  my  general's  epaulets  against  those  of  a  sub- 
lieutenant that  the  others  were  put  in  my  way  by  some 
shrewd  fellows  who  saw  and  suspected  our  talk  with  the 
man  about  his  biscuit.  Let  us  begin  the  hunt,  my  dear  sub- 
prefect,  and  confine  our  attention  to  Souday,  if  we  don't 
want  to  make  an  utter  failure  of  it." 

"Bravo!  "  cried  the  sub-prefect.  "I  feared  I  had  com- 
mitted a  blunder  ;  but  what  you  say  reassures  me." 

"What  have  you  done?  " 

"  Well,  I  have  got  the  name  of  this  mayor.  He  is  called 
Courtin,  and  is  mayor  of  the  village  of  la  Logerie." 

"  I  know  that.  It  is  close  by  the  spot  where  we  came 
near  capturing  Charette  thirty-seven  years  ago." 

"Well,  this  man  has  pointed  out  to  me  an  individual 
who  could  serve  us  as  guide,  and  whom  it  would  be  well  to 
arrest  so  that  he  may  not  go  back  to  the  château  and  give 
the  alarm." 

"Who  is  the  man?" 

"The  marquis's  steward.     Here  is  a  description  of  him." 

The  general  took  the  paper  and  read  :  — 

"Short  gray  hair,  low  forehead,  keen  black  eyes,  bushy  eye* 
brows,  wart  on  his  nose,  hair  in  the  nostrils,  whiskers  round  the 
face,  round  hat,  velveteen  jacket,  waistcoat  and  breeches  the  same, 
leathern  belt  and  gaiters.  Special  points  :  a  brown,  retriever,  and 
the  second  incisor  on  the  left  side  broken." 

"Good!"  said  the  general;  "that's  my  oat-seller  to  a 
tee.  Terrien  !  His  name  is  no  more  Terrien  than  mine  's 
Barabbas." 

"Well,  general,  you  can  soon  make  sure  of  that." 


188  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"How  so?" 

"He  '11  be  here  in  a  minute." 

"Here?" 

"Yes." 

"Is  lie  coming  here?" 

"He  is  coming  here." 

"Of  his  own  will?" 

"His  own  will,  or  by  force." 

"Force?" 

"  Yes  ;  I  have  just  given  the  order  to  arrest  him.  It  is 
done  by  this  time." 

"  Ten  thousand  thunders  !  "  cried  the  general,  letting  his 
fist  fall  upon  the  table  with  such  a  thud  that  the  public 
functionary  bounded  in  his  chair.  "Ten  thousand  thun- 
ders! "  he  cried  again;  "what  have  you  done?  " 

"  He  seems  to  me,  general,  a  dangerous  man  from  all  I 
hear  of  him,  and  there  was  but  one  thing  to  do,  —  namely, 
arrest  him." 

"Dangerous!  dangerous!  He  is  much  more  dangerous 
now  than  he  was  ten  minutes  ago." 

"But  if  he  is  in  custody  he  can't  do  harm." 

"  No  matter  how  quick  your  men  are  they  won't  prevent 
his  giving  warning.  The  princess  will  be  warned  before 
we  have  gone  a  couple  of  miles.  It  will  be  lucky  for  us  if 
you  have  n't  roused  the  whole  population  so  that  1  cannot 
take  a  single  man  from  the  garrison." 

"Perhaps  there  's  yet  time,"  said  the  sub-prefect,  rushing 
to  the  door. 

"Yes,  make  haste.     Ah!  thunder!  it 's  too  late!  " 

A  dull  roar  was  heard  without,  deepening  every  second 
until  it  reached  the  volume  of  that  dreadful  concert  of 
sounds  made  by  a  multitude  as  the  prelude  to  a  battle. 

The  general  opened  the  window.  He  saw,  at  a  short 
distance  from  the  inn,  Jean  Oullier,  bound  and  in  the 
grasp  of  gendarmes  who  were  bringing  him  along.  The 
crowd  surrounded  them,  howling  and  threatening.  The 
gendarmes  came  on  slowly  and  with  difficulty.     They  had 


THE    OUTBREAK.  189 

not  as  yet  made  use  of  their  arms.  There  was  not  a 
moment  to  lose. 

"Well,  the  wine  is  drawn;  we  have  got  to  drink  it," 
said  the  general,  pulling  off  his  civilian  clothes,  and 
hastily  getting  into  his  regimentals.  Then  he  called  to 
his   secretary. 

"  Rusconi,  my  horse  !  my  horse  !  "  he  shouted.  "  As  for 
you,  Monsieur  le  sous-préfet,  call  out  your  militia,  if 
you  have  any;  but  not  a  gun  is  to  be  fired  without  my 
orders." 

A  captain,  sent  by  the  secretary,  entered  the  room. 

"Captain,"  said  the  general,  "bring  your  men  into  the 
courtyard.  Order  my  chasseurs  to  mount;  two  days' 
rations,  and  twenty-five  cartridges  to  each  man  ;  and  hold 
yourself  ready  to  follow  me  at  the  first  signal  1  give 
you." 

The  old  general,  recovering  all  the  fire  of  his  youth, 
went  down  into  the  courtyard,  where,  sending  the  civilians 
to  the  right-about,  he  ordered  the  gates  into  the  street  to 
be  opened. 

"What!  "  cried  the  sub-prefect,  "you  are  surely  not 
going  to  present  yourself  to  that  furious  crowd  all  alone?" 

"That's  precisely  what  I  am  going  to  do.  Damn  it! 
your  men  must  be  supported.  This  is  no  time  for  senti- 
ment.    Open  that  gate." 

The  two  sides  of  the  gate  were  no  sooner  opened  than 
the  general,  setting  spurs  to  his  horse,  was  instantly  in 
the  middle  of  the  street  and  the  thick  of  the  mêlée.  This 
sudden  apparition  of  an  old  soldier,  with  a  determined  face 
and  martial  bearing,  in  full  uniform,  and  glittering  with 
decorations,  together  with  the  bold  promptitude  of  his 
action,  produced  an  electric  effect  upon  the  crowd.  The 
clamoring  ceased  as  if  by  magic.  Cudgels  were  lowered; 
the  peasants  who  were  nearest  to  the  general  actually 
touched  their  hats;  the  crowd  made  way,  and  the  soldier 
of  Rivoli  and  the  Pyramids  rode  on  some  twenty  paces  in 
the  direction  of  the  gendarmes. 


190  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Why,  what's  the  matter  with  you,  my  gars?"  he 
cried,  in  so  stentorian  a  voice  that  he  was  heard  even  to 
the  neighboring  streets. 

"They've  arrested  Jean  Oullier;  that's  what's  the 
matter  with  us,"  replied  a  voice. 

"And  Jean  Oullier  is  a  good  man,"  shouted  another. 

"They  ought  to  arrest  bad  men,  and  not  good  ones,"  said 
a  third. 

"  And  that 's  why  we  are  not  going  to  let  them  take  Jean 
Oullier,"  cried  a  fourth. 

"  Silence  !  "  said  the  general,  in  so  imperious  a  tone  that 
every  voice  was  hushed.  "  If  Jean  Oullier  is  a  good  man, 
a  worthy  man,  —  which  I  do  not  doubt,  —  Jean  Oullier 
will  be  released.  If  he  is  one  who  is  trying  to  deceive 
you  and  take  advantage  of  your  good  and  loyal  feelings, 
Jean  Oullier  will  be  punished.  Do  you  think  it  unjust  to 
punish  those  who  try  to  plunge  the  country  back  into  those 
horrors  of  civil  war  of  which  the  old  now  tell  the  young 
with  tears?  " 

"  Jean  Oullier  is  a  peaceable  man,  and  does  n't  do  harm 
to  any  one,"  said  a  voice. 

"What  are  you  wanting  now?"  continued  the  general, 
without  noticing  the  interruption.  "Your  priests  are 
respected;  your  religion  is  ours.  Have  we  killed  the  king, 
as  in  1793?  Have  we  abolished  God,  as  in  1794?  Is  your 
property  in  danger?  No;  you  and  your  property  are  safe 
under  the  common  law.  Never  were  your  trades  and  your 
commerce  so  flourishing." 

"  That  is  true,  "  said  a  young  peasant. 

"Don't  listen  to  bad  Frenchmen  who,  to  satisfy  their 
selfish  passions,  do  not  shrink  from  calling  down  upon 
their  country  all  the  horrors  of  civil  Avar.  Can't  you 
remember  what  those  horrors  were  ?  Must  I  remind  you 
of  them?  Must  I  bring  to  mind  your  old  men,  your 
mothers,  your  wives,  your  children  massacred  before  your 
eyes,  your  harvests  trampled  under  foot,  your  cottages  in 
flames,  death  and  ruin  at  every  hearth  !  " 


THE  OUTBREAK.  191 

"It  was  the  Blues  who  did  it  all,"  cried  a  voice. 

"No,  it  was  not  the  Blues,"  continued  the  general.  "It 
was  those  who  drove  you  to  that  senseless  struggle,  sense- 
less then,  but  wicked  now,  —  a  struggle  which  had  at  least 
a  pretext  then,  but  has  none  whatever  in  these  days." 

While  speaking  the  general  pushed  his  horse  in  the 
direction  of  the  gendarmes,  who,  on  their  side,  made 
eveiy  effort  to  reach  the  general.  This  was  all  the  more 
possible  because  his  address,  soldierly  as  it  was,  made  an 
evident  impression  on  some  of  the  peasants.  Many  lowered 
their  heads  and  were  silent;  others  made  remarks  tu  their 
neighbors,  which  seemed  from  their  manner  to  imply 
approval. 

Nevertheless,  the  farther  the  general  advanced  into  the 
crowd,  the  less  favorable  grew  the  expression  of  the  faces. 
In  fact,  the  nearest  to  him  were  altogether  menacing;  and 
the  owners  of  these  faces  were  evidently  the  promoters 
and  the  leaders  of  the  uproar,  —  probably  the  chiefs  of 
the  various  bands  and  what  were  called  the  captains  of 
parishes. 

For  such  men  as  these  it  was  useless  to  be  eloquent; 
their  determination  was  fixed  not  to  listen  and  not  to  let 
others  listen.  They  did  not  shout  nor  cry;  they  roared 
and  howled.  The  general  understood  the  situation.  He 
resolved  to  impress  the  minds  of  these  men  by  one  of  those 
acts  of  personal  vigor  which  have  such  enormous  influence 
on  the  multitude. 

Aubin  Courte-Joie  was  in  the  front  rank  of  the  rioters. 
This  may  seem  strange  in  view  of  his  crippled  condition. 
But  Aubin  Courte- Joie  had,  for  the  time  being,  added  to 
his  useless  wooden  legs  two  good  and  powerful  legs  of 
flesh  and  blood.  In  other  words,  he  was  mounted  on  the 
shoulders  of  a  colossal  tramp;  and  the  said  tramp,  by 
means  of  straps  attached  to  the  wooden  legs  of  his  rider, 
was  able  to  hold  the  cripple  as  firmly  in  his  seat  as  the 
general  was  in  his  saddle. 

Thus  perched,  Aubin   Courte- Joie's   head   was   on   the 


192  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

level  of  the  general's  epaulet,  where  he  kept  up  a  series  of 
frantic  vociferations  and  threatening  gestures.  The  gen- 
eral stretched  out  his  hand,  took  the  tavern-keeper  by  the 
collar  of  his  jacket,  and  then,  by  sheer  force  of  wrist, 
raised  hirn,held  him  a  moment  suspended  above  the  crowd, 
and  then  handed  him  over  to  a  gendarme,  saying:  — 

"Lock  up  that  mountebank;  he  is  enough  to  give  one  a 
headache." 

The  tramp,  relieved  of  his  rider,  raised  his  head,  and 
the  general  recognized  the  idiot  he  had  talked  with  an 
hour  earlier  ;  only ,  by  this  time  the  idiot  looked  as  shrewd 
and  clever  as  any  of  them. 

The  general's  action  had  raised  a  laugh  from  the  crowd, 
but  this  hilarity  did  not  last  long.  Aubin  Courte-Joie 
happened  to  be  held  by  the  gendarme  who  was  placed  to 
the  left  of  Jean  Oullier.  He  gently  drew  from  his  pocket 
an  open  knife,  and  plunged  it  to  the  hilt  in  the  breast  of 
the  gendarme,  crying  out:  — 

"  Vive  Henri  V.  !     Fly,  gars  Oullier!  " 

At  the  same  instant  the  tramp,  inspired  perhaps  by  a 
legitimate  sentiment  of  emulation,  and  wishing  to  make  a 
worthy  rejoinder  to  the  athletic  action  of  the  general, 
glided  under  his  horse,  caught  the  general  by  the  boot,,  and 
with  a  sudden  and  vigorous  movement,  pitched  him  over 
on  the  other  side. 

The  general  and  the  gendarme  fell  at  the  same  instant, 
and  they  might  have  been  thought  dead;  but  the  general 
was  up  immediately  and  into  his  saddle  with  as  much 
strength  as  adroitness.  As  he  sprang  to  his  seat  he  gave 
such  a  powerful  blow  with  his  fist  on  the  bare  head  of  the 
late  idiot  that  the  latter,  without  uttering  a  cry,  fell  to  the 
ground  as  if  his  skull  were  broken.  Neither  tramp  nor 
gendarme  rose  again.  The  tramp  had  fainted;  the  gen- 
darme was  dead. 

Jean  Oullier,  on  his  part,  though  his  hands  were  bound, 
gave  such  a  vigorous  blow  with  his  shoulder  to  the  gen- 
darme on  his  right  that  the  latter  staggered.     Jean  Oullier 


THE   OUTBREAK.  193 

jumped  over  the  dead  body  of  the  gendarme  on  the  left, 
and  darted  into  the  crowd. 

But  the  general's  eye  was  everywhere,  even  behind  him. 

Instantly  he  turned  his  horse.  The  animal  bounded  into 
the  centre  of  the  living  whirlpool,  and  the  old  soldier 
caught  Jean  Oullier  as  he  had  caught  Aubin  Courte-Joie, 
and  threw  him  acruss  the  pommel  of  his  own  saddle. 
Then  the  stones  began  to  rain,  and  the  cudgels  rose.  The 
gendarmes  held  firm,  presenting  their  bayonets  to  the  crowd, 
which  dared  not  attack  them  at  close  quarters  and  was 
forced  to  content  itself  by  flinging  projectiles. 

They  advanced  in  this  way  to  about  sixty  feet  from  the 
inn.  Here  the  position  of  the  general  and  his  men  became 
critical.  The  peasants,  who  seemed  determined  that  Jean 
Oullier  should  not  be  left  in  the  enemy's  power,  grew 
more  and  more  aggressive.  Already  the  bayonets  were 
stained  with  blood,  and  the  fury  of  the  rioters  was  evi- 
dently increasing.  Fortunately  the  general  was  now  near 
enough  to  the  courtyard  of  the  inn  for  his  voice  to  reach  it. 

"  Here  !  grenadiers  of  the  32d  !  "  he  shouted. 

At  the  same  instant  the  gates  opened,  and  the  soldiers 
poured  forth  with  fixed  bayonets  and  drove  back  the  crowd. 
The  general  and  the  gendarmes  entered  the  yard.  Here 
the  general  encountered  the  sub-prefect,  who  was  awaitiug 
him. 

"There's  your  man,"  he  said,  flinging  Jean  Oullier  to 
him,  as  if  the  Chouan  were  a  bale  of  goods;  "and  trouble 
enough  he  has  cost  us!     God  grant  he  is  worth  his  price." 

Just  then  a  brisk  firing  was  heard  from  the  farther  end 
of  the  market-place. 

"What 's  that?  "  cried  the  general,  listening  with  all  his 
ears,  and  his  nostrils  open. 

"The  National  Guard,  no  doubt,"  replied  the  sub-prefect. 
"I  ordered  them  out,  and  they  must  have  met  the  rioters." 

"  Who  ordered  them  to  fire?  " 

"I  did,  general.     I  was  bound  to  go  to  your  rescue." 

"Ten  thousand  thunders!     Can't  you  see  that  I  rescued 

VOL.   I.  —  13 


194  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

myself?  "  said  the  old  soldier.  Then,  shaking  his  head, 
he  added,  "Monsieur,  remember  this:  to  shed  blood  in 
civil  war  is  worse  than  a  crime;  it  is  a  blunder." 

An  officer  galloped  into  the  courtyard. 

"General,"  he  said,  "the  rioters  are  flying  in  all  direc- 
tions.    The  chasseurs  are  here.     Shall  we  pursue  them?" 

"Not  a  man  is  to  stir,"  said  the  general.  "Leave  the 
National  Guard  to  manage  the  affair.  They  are  friends; 
they  '11  settle  it." 

A  second  discharge  of  musketry  proved  that  the  militia 
and  the  peasantry  were  indeed  settling  it.  This  was  the 
firing  heard  at  La  Logerie  by  Baron  Michel. 

"Ah!  "  said  the  general,  "now  we  must  see  what  profit 
we  can  get  out  of  this  melancholy  business."  Pointing  to 
Jean  Oullier,  he  added,  "We  have  but  one  chance,  and 
that  is  that  no  one  but  this  man  is  in  the  secret.  Did  he 
have  any  communication  with  any  one  after  you  arrested 
him,   gendarmes  ?  " 

"No,  general,  not  even  by  signs,  for  his  hands  were 
bound." 

"  Did  n't  he  make  any  gestures  with  his  head,  or  say  a 
word  to  anybody?  You  know  very  well  that  a  nod  or  a 
single  word  is  enough  with  these  fellows." 

"No,  general,  not  one." 

"Well  then,  we  may  as  well  run  the  chance.  Let  your 
men  eat  their  rations,  captain;  in  half  an  hour  we  start. 
The  gendarmes  and  the  National  Guard  are  enough  to 
guard  the  town.  I  shall  take  my  escort  of  chasseurs  to 
clear  the  way." 

So  saying,  the  general  retired  into  the  inn.  The  soldiers 
made  their  preparations  for  departure. 

During  this  time  Jean  Oullier  sat  stolidly  on  a  stone  in 
the  middle  of  the  courtyard,  kept  in  sight  by  the  two  gen- 
darmes who  were  guarding  him.  His  face  retained  its 
habitual  impassibility.  With  his  two  bound  hands  he 
stroked  his  dog,  which  had  followed  him,  and  was  now 
resting  its  head  on  his  knees  and  licking  his  hand,  as  if  to 


THE    OUTBREAK.  195 

remind  the  prisoner  in  his  misfortune  that  a  friend  was 
near  him. 

Jean  Oullier  was  gently  stroking  the  faithful  creature's 
head  with  the  feather  of  a  wild  duck  he  might  have  picked 
up  in  the  courtyard.  Suddenly,  profiting  by  a  moment 
when  his  two  guards  were  speaking  to  each  other  and  not 
observing  him,  he  slipped  the  feather  between  the  teeth  of 
the  animal,  made  it  a  sign  of  intelligence,  and  rose,  saying, 
in  a  low  voice  :  — 

"Go,  Pataud!" 

The  dog  gently  moved  away,  looking  back  at  his  master 
from  time  to  time.  Then,  when  he  reached  the  gate,  he 
bounded  out,  unobserved  by  any  one,  and  disappeared. 

"Good!"  said  Jean  Oullier  to  himself.  "He'll  get 
there  before  we  do." 

Unfortunately,  the  gendarmes  were  not  the  only  ones 
who  were  watching  the  prisoner. 


196  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XXI. 

JEAN  OULLIER'S    RESOURCES. 

Even  in  these  days  there  are  few  good  roads  in  La  Vendée, 
and  those  few  have  been  made  since  1832,  that  is,  since  the 
period  of  which  we  are  now  writing.  This  lack  of  roads 
was  the  principal  strength  of  the  insurgents  in  the  great 
war.  Let  us  say  a  word  on  those  that  then  existed,  concern- 
ing ourselves  only  with  those  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Loire. 

They  were  two  in  number.  The  first  went  from  Nantes 
to  Rochelle,  through  Montai gu  ;  the  second  from  Nantes  to 
Paimboeuf  by  the  Pèlerin,  following  almost  continuously  the 
banks  of  the  river. 

Besides  these  two  main  highways,  there  were  other 
secondary  or  cross  roads  ;  these  went  from  Nantes  to  Beau- 
préau  through  Vallet,  from  Nantes  to  Mortagne,  Chollet,  and 
Bressuire  by  Clisson,  from  Nantes  to  Sables-d'Olonne  by 
Légé,  and  from  Nantes  to  Challans  by  Machecoul.  To  reach 
Machecoul  by  either  of  these  roads  it  was  necessary  to 
make  a  long  detour,  in  fact,  as  far  round  as  Légé  ;  thence 
along  the  road  from  Nantes  to  Sables-d'Olonne,  following 
that  until  it  was  crossed  by  the  road  to  Challans,  by  which 
the  traveller  retraced  his  way  to  Machecoul. 

The  general  knew  too  well  that  the  whole  success  of  his 
expedition  depended  on  the  rapidity  with  which  it  was  con- 
ducted to  be  willing  to  resign  himself  to  so  long  a  march. 
Besides,  none  of  these  roads  were  favorable  for  military 
operations.  They  were  bordered  by  deep  ditches,  gorse, 
bushes  of  all  kinds,  and  trees  ;  in  many  places  they  were 
sunken  between  high  banks  with  hedges  at  the  top.  Such 
roads,  under  any  of  these  conditions,  were  favorable  for 
ambuscades;   the  little  advantage  they  offered  in  no  way 


JEAN    OULLlER's    RESOURCES.  197 

counterbalanced  their  risks.  The  general  therefore  deter- 
mined to  follow  a  cross-country  road  which  led  to  Machecoul 
by  Vieille-Vigne  and  shortened  the  way  by  over  four  miles. 

The  system  of  encampments  the  general  had  adopted 
since  coming  to  La  Vendée  had  familiarized  his  soldiers 
with  the  nature  of  the  land  and  given  them  a  good  eye  for 
dangerous  places.  The  captain  in  command  of  the  infantry 
knew  the  way  as  far  as  the  Boulogne  river  ;  but  from  that 
point  it  was  necessary  to  have  a  guide.  It  was  plain  that 
Jean  Oullier  would  not  be  willing  to  show  the  way,  and  an- 
other man  was  therefore  obtained  on  whose  fidelity  they 
could  rely. 

The  general  in  deciding  on  the  cross-road  took  every  pre- 
caution against  a  surprise.  Two  chasseurs,  pistol  in  hand, 
went  first  to  reconnoitre  the  way  for  the  column  ;  while  a 
dozen  men  on  each  side  of  the  road  examined  the  gorse  and 
the  bushes  which  lined  it  everywhere  and  sometimes  over- 
topped it.  The  general  marched  at  the  head  of  his  little 
troop,  in  the  midst  of  which  he  had  placed  Jean  Oullier. 

The  old  Vendéan,  with  his  wrists  bound,  was  mounted 
behind  a  chasseur  ;  for  greater  security  a  girth  had  been 
passed  around  his  body  and  buckled  across  the  breast  of  the 
soldier  before  him  ;  so  that  Jeau  Oullier  if  he  could  even 
have  freed  his  hands  could  not  escape  his  bonds  to  the 
rider  before  him.  Two  other  chasseurs  rode  to  the  left  and 
right  with  special  orders  to  watch  him  carefully. 

It  was  about  six  in  the  evening  when  the  detachment 
left  Montaigu;  they  had  fifteen  miles  to  do,  and,  supposing 
that  those  fifteen  miles  took  five  hours,  they  ought  to  be  at 
the  château  de  Souday  by  eleven.  The  hour  seemed  favor- 
able to  the  general  for  his  plans.  If  Courtin's  report  was 
correct,  if  he  had  not  been  misled  in  his  conclusions,  the 
leaders  of  the  last  Vendéan  movement  were  now  assembled 
at  Souday  to  confer  with  the  princess,  and  it  was  likely  that 
they  would  not  have  left  the  château  before  his  arrival.  If 
this  were  so,  nothing  could  prevent  him  from  capturing 
them  all  by  one  throw  of  the  net. 


198  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

After  marching  for  half  an  hour,  that  is,  to  a  distance  of 
about  a  mile  and  a  half  from  Montaigu,  just  as  the  little 
column  was  passing  the  crossway  of  Saint-Corentin  they 
came  upon  an  old  woman  in  rags,  who  was  praying  on  her 
knees  before  a  wayside  crucifix.  At  the  noise  the  column 
made  she  turned  her  head,  and  then,  as  if  impelled  by  curi- 
osity, she  rose  and  stood  beside  the  road  to  see  it  pass. 
The  gold-laced  coat  of  the  general  seemed  to  give  her  the 
idea  of  begging,  and  she  muttered  the  sort  of  prayer  with 
which  beggars  ask  for  alms. 

Officers  and  soldiers,  preoccupied  with  other  matters,  and 
growing  surly  as  the  twilight  deepened,  passed  on  without 
attending  to  her. 

"  Your  general  took  no  notice  of  that  poor  woman  who 
asked  for  bread,"  said  Jean  Oullier  to  the  chasseur  who  was 
on  his  right. 

"  Why  do  you  think  so  ?  "  said  the  soldier. 

"  Because  he  did  not  give  her  anything.  Let  him  beware. 
Whoso  repulses  the  open  palm  must  fear  the  closed  fist,  says 
the  proverb.     Harm  will  happen  to  us." 

"  If  you  take  that  prediction  to  yourself,  my  good  man, 
you  are  not  mistaken,  inasmuch  as  you  are  already  in  peril." 

"  Yes,  and  that  is  why  I  would  like  to  conjure  it  away." 

"  How  can  you  ?  " 

"Feel  in  my  pocket  for  me  and  take  out  a  piece  of 
money." 

"What  for?" 

"  To  give  to  that  old  woman,  and  then  she  '11  share  her 
prayers  between  me  who  give  the  alms  and  you  who  enable 
her  to  get  them." 

The  chasseur  shrugged  his  shoulders  ;  but  superstitions 
are  singularly  contagious,  and  those  attached  to  ideas  of 
charity  are  more  so  than  others.  The  soldier,  while  pre- 
tending to  be  above  such  nonsense,  thought  he  ought  not  to 
refuse  to  do  the  kindness  Jean  Oullier  asked  of  him,  which 
might,  moreover,  bring  down  the  blessing  of  Heaven  on 
both  of  them. 


jean  oulliek's  kesoukces.  199 

The  troop  was  at  this  moment  wheeling  to  the  right  into 
the  sunken  road  which  leads  to  Vieille- Vigne.  The  general 
stopped  his  horse  to  watch  the  men  file  past  him,  and  see 
with  his  own  eyes  that  all  the  arrangements  he  had  ordered 
were  carried  out  ;  it  thus  happened  that  he  saw  Jean  Oullier 
speaking  to  the  chasseur,  and  he  also  saw  the  soldier's 
action. 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  letting  the  prisoner  speak  to 
strangers  on  the  road  ?  "  he  said  sharply. 

The  chasseur  related  what  had  happened. 

"  Halt  !  "  cried  the  general  ;  "  arrest  that  woman,  and 
search  her." 

The  order  was  instantly  obeyed,  but  nothing  was  found 
on  the  old  beggar-woman  but  a  few  pieces  of  copper  money, 
which  the  general  examined  with  the  utmost  care.  In  vain 
did  he  turn  and  re-turn  the  coins  ;  nothing  could  he  find  in 
the  least  suspicious  about  them.  He  put  the  coins  in  his 
pocket,  however,  giving  to  the  old  woman  a  five-franc  piece 
in  exchange.  Jean  Oullier  watched  the  general's  actions 
with  a  sarcastic  smile. 

"  Well,  you  see,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice  but  loud  enough 
for  the  beggar-woman  to  hear  him  without  losing  a  single 
word,  "you  see  the  poor  alms  of  a.  prisoner"  (he  emphasized 
the  word)  "  have  brought  you  luck,  old  mother  ;  and  that 's 
another  reason  still  why  you  should  remember  me  in  your 
prayers.  A  dozen  Ave  Marias  said  for  him  will  greatly  help 
the  salvation  of  a  poor  devil." 

Jean  Oullier  raised  his  voice  as  he  said  the  last  words. 

"  My  good  man,"  said  the  general  to  Jean  Oullier  when 
the  column  had  resumed  its  march,  "  in  future  you  must 
address  yourself  to  me  when  you  have  any  charity  to  do  ; 
I  '11  recommend  you  to  the  prayers  of  those  you  want  to 
succor;  my  mediation  won't  do  you  any  harm  up  above, 
and  it  may  spare  j^ou  many  an  annoyance  here  below.  As 
for  you,  men,"  continued  the  general,  speaking  gruffly  to 
his  cavalry,  "  don't  forget  my  orders  in  future  ;  for  the  harm 
will  fall  upon  yourselves,  and  I  tell  you  so  !  " 


200  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

At  Vieille- Vigne  they  halted  fifteen  minutes  to  rest  the 
infantry.  The  Chouan  was  placed  in  the  centre  of  the 
square,  so  as  to  isolate  him  completely  from  the  population 
which  flocked  inquisitively  about  the  troop.  The  horse  on 
which  Jean  Oullier  was  mounted  had  cast  a  shoe,  and  was, 
moreover,  tired  with  its  double  burden.  The  general 
picked  out  the  strongest  animal  in  the  squadron  to  take  its 
place.  This  horse  belonged  to  one  of  the  troopers  in  the 
front  rank,  who,  in  spite  of  the  greater  exposure  to  danger 
where  he  was,  seemed  very  reluctant  to  change  places  with 
his  comrade. 

The  man  was  short,  stocky,  vigorous,  with  a  gentle  but 
intelligent  face  ;  and  was  quite  devoid  of  the  cavalier  man- 
ner which  characterized  his  comrades.  During  the  prepara- 
tions for  this  change,  which  was  made  by  the  light  of  a 
lantern  (by  that  time  the  night  was  very  dark)  Jean  Oullier 
caught  sight  of  the  face  of  the  man  behind  whom  he  was  to 
continue  his  way  ;  his  eyes  met  those  of  the  soldier,  and  he 
noticed  that  the  latter  lowered  his. 

Again  the  column  started,  taking  every  precaution;  for 
the  farther  they  advanced,  the  thicker  grew  the  bushes  and 
the  coverts  beside  the  road  ;  consequently  the  easier  it  be- 
came to  attack  them.  The  prospect  of  danger  to  be  met 
and  weariness  to  be  endured,  on  roads  which  were  little  bet- 
ter in  many  places  than  beds  of  water-courses  strewn  with 
rocks  and  stones,  did  not  lessen  the  gayety  of  the  soldiers, 
who  now  began,  after  recovering  from  their  first  surliness 
at  nightfall,  to  find  amusement  in  the  idea  of  danger,  and  to 
talk  among  themselves  with  that  liveliness  which  seldom 
deserts  a  French  soldier  for  any  length  of  time.  The  chas- 
seur behind  whom  Jean  Oullier  was  mounted  alone  took  no 
part  in  the  talk,  but  was  thoughtful  and  gloomy. 

"  Confound  you,  Thomas,"  said  the  trooper  on  the  right, 
addressing  him,  "you  never  have  much  to  say  for  yourself, 
but  to-day,  I  will  declare,  one  would  think  you  were  burying 
the  devil." 

"At  any  rate,"  said  the  one  to  the  left,  "he  has  got  him 


JEAN    OULLIER'S   RESOURCES.  201 

on  his  back.  You  ought  to  like  that,  Thomas,  for  you  are 
half  a  Chouan  yourself." 

"  He  's  a  whole  Chouan,  I  'm  thinking  ;  does  n't  he  go  to 
mass  every  Sunday  ?  " 

The  chasseur  named  Thomas  had  no  time  to  answer  these 
twittings,  for  the  general's  voice  now  ordered  the  men  to 
break  ranks  and  advance  single  file,  the  way  having  become 
so  narrow  and  the  bank  on  each  side  so  steep  that  it  was 
impossible  for  two  horsemen  to  ride  abreast. 

During  the  momentary  confusion  caused  by  this  manoeuvre 
Jean  Oullier  began  to  whistle  in  a  low  key  the  Breton  air 
"The  Chouans  are  men  of  heart." 

At  the  first  note  the  rider  quivered.  Then,  as  the  other 
troopers  were  now  before  and  behind  them,  Jean  Oullier, 
safe  from  observation,  put  his  mouth  close  to  the  ear  of  the 
one  behind  whom  he  was  mounted. 

"  Ha  !  you  may  be  as  silent  as  you  like,  Thomas  Tinguy," 
he  whispered;  "  I  knew  3rou  at  once,  and  you  knew  me." 

The  soldier  sighed  and  made  a  motion  with  his  shoulders 
which  seem  to  mean  that  he  was  acting  against  his  will. 
But  he  made  no  answer. 

"  Thomas  Tinguy,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  "  do  you  know 
where  you  are  going  ?  Do  you  know  where  you  are  taking 
your  father's  old  friend  ?  To  the  pillage  and  destruction  of 
the  château  de  Souday,  whose  masters  have  been  for  years 
and  years  the  benefactors  of  your  family." 

Thomas  Tinguy  sighed  again. 

"  Your  father  is  dead,"  continued  Jean  Oullier. 

Thomas  made  no  reply,  but  he  shuddered  in  his  saddle  ; 
a  single  word  escaped  his  lips  and  reached  the  ears  of  Jean 
Oullier  :  — 

"  Dead  !  " 

"  Yes,  dead,"  replied  the  Chouan  ;  "  and  who  watched  be- 
side his  dying  bed  with  your  sister  Rosine  and  received  his 
last  sigh  ?  The  two  young  ladies  from  Souday  whom  you 
know  well,  Mademoiselle  Bertha  and  Mademoiselle  Mary  ; 
and  that  at  the  risk  of  their  lives,  for  your  father  died  of  a 


202  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

malignant  fever.  Not  being  able  to  save  his  life,  angels 
that  they  are  they  stayed  beside  him  to  ease  his  death. 
Where  is  your  sister  now,  having  no  home  ?  At  the 
château  de  Souday.  Ah  !  Thomas  Tinguy,  I  'd  rather  be 
poor  Jean  Oullier,  whom  they  '11  shoot  against  a  wall,  than 
he  who  takes  him  bound  to  execution." 

"  Hush  !  Jean,  hush  !  "  said  Thomas  Tinguy,  with  a  sob 
in  his  voice  ;  "  we  are  not  there  yet  —  wait  and  see." 

While  this  little  colloquy  was  passing  between  Jean 
Oullier  and  the  son  of  the  older  Tinguy,  the  ravine  through 
which  the  little  column  was  moving  began  to  slope  down- 
ward rapidly.  They  were  nearing  one  of  the  fords  of  the 
Boulogne  river. 

It  was  a  dark  night  without  a  star  in  the  sky  ;  and  such 
a  night,  while  it  might  favor  the  ultimate  success  of  the 
expedition,  might  also,  on  the  other  hand,  hinder  its  march 
and  even  imperil  it  in  this  wild  and  unknown  country. 

When  they  reached  the  ford  they  found  the  two  chasseurs 
who  had  been  sent  in  advance,  awaiting  them,  pistol  in 
hand.  They  were  evidently  uneasy.  The  ford,  instead  of 
being  a  clear,  shallow  stream  rippling  over  pebbles,  was  a 
dark  and  stagnant  body  of  water,  washing  softly  against  a 
rocky  bank. 

They  looked  on  all  sides  for  the  guide  whom  Courtin  had 
agreed  should  meet  them  at  this  point.  The  general  gave 
a  loud  call.     A  voice  answered  on  the  opposite  shore,  — 

"  Qui  vive  ?  " 

"  Souday  !  "  replied  the  general. 

"Then  you  are  the  ones  I  am  waiting  for,"  said  the 
guide. 

"  Is  this  the  ford  of  the  Boulogne  ?  "  asked  the  general. 

"  Yes." 

"  Why  is  the  water  so  high  ?  " 

"  There 's  a  flood  since  the  last  rains." 

"  Is  the  crossing  possible  in  spite  of  it  ?  " 

"  Damn  it  !  I  don't  know.  I  have  never  seen  the  river 
as  high  as  this.     I  think  it  would  be  more  prudent  —  " 


JEAN   OULLIER'S    RESOURCES.  203 

The  guide's  voice  suddenly  stopped,  or  rather  seemed  to 
turn  into  a  moan.  Then  the  sound  of  a  struggle  was  plainly 
heard,  as  if  the  feet  of  several  men  were  tussling  on  the 
pebbles. 

"  A  thousand  thunders  !  "  cried  the  general,  "  our  guide  is 
being  murdered  !  " 

A  cry  of  agony  replied  to  the  general's  exclamation  and 
confirmed  it. 

"  A  grenadier  up  behind  every  trooper  !  "  cried  the  gen- 
eral. "  The  captain  behind  me  !  The  two  lieutenants  stay 
here  with  the  rest  of  the  troop,  the  prisoner,  and  his  three 
guards.     Come  on,  and  quickly  too  !  " 

In  a  moment  the  seventeen  chasseurs  had  each  a  grena- 
dier behind  him.  Eighty  grenadiers,  the  two  lieutenants, 
the  prisoner  and  his  three  guards,  including  Tinguy,  re- 
mained on  the  right  bank  of  the  river.  The  order  was 
executed  with  the  rapidity  of  thought,  and  the  general,  fol- 
lowed by  his  chasseurs  and  the  seventeen  grenadiers  behind 
them,  plunged  into  the  bed  of  the  river. 

Twenty  feet  from  the  shore  the  horses  lost  foothold,  but 
they  swam  for  a  few  moments  and  reached,  without  accident, 
the  opposite  bank.  They  had  hardly  landed  when  the 
grenadiers  dismounted. 

"  Can  you  see  anything  ?  "  said  the  general,  trying  him- 
self to  pierce  the  darkness  that  surrounded  the  little  troop. 

"  No,  general,"  said  the  men  with  one  voice. 

"  Yet  it  was  certainly  from  here,"  said  the  general,  as  if 
speaking  to  himself,  "that  the  man  answered  me.  Look 
behind  the  bushes,  but  without  scattering  ;  you  may  find 
his  body." 

The  soldiers  obeyed,  searching  round  a  radius  of  some 
hundred  and  fifty  feet.  But  they  returned  in  about  fifteen 
minutes  and  reported  that  they  could  see  nothing,  and  had 
found  no  traces  of  the  body. 

"  You  saw  absolutely  nothing  ?  "  asked  the  general. 

One  grenadier  alone  came  forward,  holding  in  his  hand  a 
cotton  cap. 


204  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  I  found  this,"  he  said. 

"Where?" 

"  Hooked  to  a  bush." 

"  That 's  our  guide's  cap,"  said  the  general. 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  "  asked  the  captain. 

"  Because  the  men  who  attacked  him  would  have  worn 
hats,"  replied  the  general,  without  the  slightest  hesitation. 

The  captain  was  silent,  not  daring  to  ask  further  ;  but  it 
was  evident  that  the  general's  explanation  had  explained 
nothing  to  his  mind. 

Dernioncourt  understood  the  captain's  silence. 

"  It  is  very  simple,"  he  said  ;  "  the  men  who  have  just 
murdered  our  guide  have  followed  us  ever  since  we  left 
Montaigu  for  the  purpose  of  rescuing  the  prisoner.  The 
arrest  must  be  a  more  important  matter  than  I  thought  it 
was.  These  men  who  have  followed  us  were  at  the  fair, 
and  wore  hats,  as  they  always  do  when  they  go  to  the  towns  ; 
whereas  our  guide  was  called  from  his  bed  suddenly  by  the 
man  who  sent  him  to  us,  and  he  would  of  course  put  on  the 
cap  he  was  in  the  habit  of  wearing  ;  it  may  even  have  been 
on  his  head  as  he  slept." 

"  Do  you  really  think,  general,"  said  the  captain,  "  that 
those  Chouans  would  dare  to  come  so  near  our  line  of 
march  ?  " 

"  They  have  come  step  by  step  with  us  from  Montaigu  ; 
they  have  not  let  us  out  of  their  sight  one  single  instant. 
Heavens  and  earth  !  people  complain  of  our  inhumanity  in 
this  war,  and  yet  at  every  step  we  are  made  to  feel,  to  our 
cost,  that  we  have  not  been  inhuman  enough.  Fool  and 
simpleton  that  I  have  been  !  " 

"I  understand  you  less  and  less,  general,"  said  the  cap- 
tain, laughing. 

"Do  you  remember  that  beggar-woman  who  spoke  to  us 
just  after  we  left  Montaigu?" 

"Yes,  general." 

"  Well,  it  was  that  old  hag  who  put  up  this  attack.  I 
wanted  to  send  her  back  into  the  town  ;  I  did  wrong  not  to 


JEAN    OULLIER'S    RESOURCES.  205 

follow  my  own  instinct  ;  I  should  have  saved  the  life  of 
this  poor  devil.  Ah  !  I  see  now  how  it  was  done.  The  Ave 
Marias  for  which  the  prisoner  asked  have  been  answered 
here." 

"  Do  you  think  they  will  dare  to  attack  us  ?  " 

"  If  they  were  in  force  it  would  have  been  done  before 
now.     But  there  are  only  six  or  eight  of  them  at  the  most." 

"Shall  I  bring  over  the  men  on  the  other  bank, 
general  ?  " 

"No,  wait;  the  horses  lost  foothold  and  the  infantry 
would  drown.     There  must  be  some  better  ford  near  by." 

"  You  think  so,  general  ?  " 

"  Damn  it  !     I  'in  sure." 

"  Then  you  know  the  river  ?  " 

"  Never  saw  it  before." 

"  Then  why  —  ?  " 

"  Ah  !  captain,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  you  did  n't  go 
through  the  great  war,  as  I  did,  —  that  war  of  savages,  in 
which  we  had  to  go  by  inductiou.  These  Vendéan  fellows 
were  not  posted  here  on  this  side  of  the  river  in  ambuscade 
at  the  moment  when  we  came  up  on  the  other  :  that  is 
clear." 

"  For  you,  general." 

"Hey  !  bless  my  soul,  — clear  to  anybody  !  If  they  had 
been  posted  there,  they  would  have  heard  the  guide  and 
killed  him  or  captured  him  before  we  came;  consequently 
the  band  were  on  our  flank  as  we  came  along." 

"  That  is  probably  so,  general." 

"  And  they  must  have  reached  the  bank  of  the  river  just 
before  us.  Now  the  interval  between  the  time  we  arrived 
and  halted  and  the  moment  our  guide  was  attacked  was  too 
short  to  allow  of  their  making  a  long  detour  to  another 
ford  —  no,  they  must  have  forded  close  by." 

"  Why  could  n't  they  have  crossed  here  ?  " 

"Because  a  peasant,  especially  in  these  interior  regions, 
hardly  ever  knows  how  to  swim.  The  ford  is  close  at  hand, 
that  is  certain.     Send  four  men  up  the  river  and  four  men 


206  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

down.  Quick!  We  don't  want  to  die  here,  especially  in 
wet  clothes." 

At  the  end  of  ten  minutes  the  officer  returned. 

"  You  are  right,  general,"  he  said  ;  "  three  hundred  yards 
from  here  there  's  a  small  island  ;  the  trunk  of  a  tree  joins 
it  with  the  other  bank,  and  another  trunk  with  this  side." 

"  Good  !  "  said  the  general  ;  "  then  they  can  get  across 
without  wetting  a  cartridge." 

Calling  to  the  officer  on  the  opposite  bank,  — 

"  Ohé  !  lieutenant,"  he  said,  "  go  up  the  river  till  you 
come  to  a  tree^  cross  there,  and  be  sure  you  watch  the 
prisoner." 


fetch!  pataud,  fetch!  207 


XXII. 

FETCH  !    PATAUD,    FETCH  ! 

For  the  next  five  minutes  the  two  troops  advanced  slowly 
up  the  river,  one  on  each  bank.  When  they  reached  the 
place  discovered  by  the  captain  the  general  called  a  halt. 

"  One  lieutenant  and  forty  men  across  !  "  he  cried. 

Forty  men  and  one  lieutenant  came  over  with  the  water 
up  to  their  shoulders,  though  they  were  able  to  lift  their 
guns  and  their  cartridge-boxes  above  the  surface.  On  land- 
ing, they  ranged  in  line  of  battle. 

"Now,"  said  the  general,  " bring  over  the  prisoner." 

Thomas  Tinguy  entered  the  water  with  a  chasseur  on 
each  side  of  him. 

"Thomas,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  in  a  low  but  penetrating 
voice,  "If  I  were  in  your  place  I  should  be  afraid  of  one 
thing  ;  I  should  expect  to  see  the  ghost  of  my  father  rising 
before  me  and  asking  why  I  shed  the  blood  of  his  best  friend 
rather  than  just  unbuckle  a  miserable  girth." 

The  chasseur  passed  his  hand  over  his  forehead,  which 
was  bathed  in  sweat,  and  made  the  sign  of  the  cross.  At 
this  moment  the  three  riders  were  in  the  middle  of  the  river, 
but  the  current  had  slightly  separated  them. 

Suddenly,  a  loud  sound  accompanied  by  the  splashing  of 
water  proved  that  Jean  Oullier  had  not  in  vain  evoked 
before  the  poor  superstitious  Breton  soldier  the  revered 
image  of  his  father. 

The  general  knew  at  once  what  the  sound  meant. 

"The  prisoner  is  escaping  !  "  he  cried  in  a  voice  of  thun- 
der. "  Light  torches,  spread  yourselves  along  the  bank,  fire 
upon  him  if   he  shows  himself.     As  for  you,"  he   added 


208  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

addressing  Thomas  Tinguy,  who  came  ashore  close  to  him 
without  attempting  to  escape,  —  "  as  for  you,  you  go  no 
farther." 

Taking  a  pistol  from  his  belt  he  fired. 

"  Thus  die  all  traitors  !  "  he  cried. 

And  Thomas  Tingny,  shot  through  the  breast,  fell  dead. 

The  soldiers,  obeying  orders  with  a  rapidity  which 
showed  they  felt  the  gravity  of  their  situation,  rushed  along 
the  river  in  the  direction  of  the  current.  A  dozen  torches 
lighted  on  each  bank  threw  their  ruddy  glare  upon  the 
water. 

Jean  Oullier,  released  from  his  chief  bond  when  Thomas 
Tinguy  unbuckled  the  girth,  slid  from  the  horse  and 
plunged  into  the  river,  passing  between  the  legs  of  the  horse 
on  the  right.  We  may  now  inquire  how  it  is  possible  for  a 
man  to  swim  with  his  hands  bound  in  front  of  him. 

Jean  Oullier  had  relied  so  confidently  on  his  appeal  to 
the  son  of  his  old  friend  that  as  soon  as  the  darkness  fell  he 
began  to  gnaw  the  rope  that  bound  his  wrists  with  his  teeth. 
He  had  good  teeth,  so  that  by  the  time  they  reached  the 
river  the  rope  held  only  by  a  single  strand  ;  once  in  the 
water  a  vigorous  jerk  parted  it  altogether. 

At  the  end  of  a  few  seconds  the  Chouan  was  forced  to 
come  to  the  surface  and  breathe  ;  instantly  a  dozen  shots 
were  fired  at  him,  and  as  many  balls  set  the  water  foaming 
about  him.  By  a  miracle  none  touched  him  ;  but  he  felt 
the  wind  of  their  passage  across  his  face. 

It  was  not  prudent  to  tempt  such  luck  a  second  time,  for 
then  it  would  be  tempting  God,  not  luck.  He  plunged 
again,  and  finding  foothold  turned  to  go  up  the  river  instead 
of  keeping  down  with  the  current  ;  in  short,  he  made  what 
is  called  in  the  hunting-field  a  double  ;  it  often  succeeds 
with  a  hare,  why  not  with  a  man  ?  thought  he. 

Jean  Oullier  therefore  doubled,  went  up  the  river  under 
water,  holding  his  breath  till  his  chest  came  near  to  burst- 
ing, and  not  reappearing  on  the  surface  till  he  was  beyond 
the  line  of  light  thrown  by  the  torches  on  the  river. 


FETCH  !    PATAUD,    FETCH  !  20'.") 

This  manœuvre  deceived  his  enemies.  Little  supposing 
that  he  would  voluntarily  add  another  danger  to  his  flight, 
the  soldiers  continued  to  look  for  him  down  instead  of  up 
the  river,  holding  their  guns  like  hunters  watching  for 
game,  and  ready  to  tire  the  instant  that  he  showed  himself. 
Their  interest  in  the  sport  was  all  the  greater  because  the 
game  was  a  man. 

Half  a  dozen  grenadiers  alone  beat  up  the  river,  and  they 
carried  but  one  torch  among  them. 

Stifling  as  best  he  could  the  heavy  sound  of  his  breathing, 
Jean  Oullier  managed  to  reach  a  willow  the  branches  of 
which  stretched  over  the  river,  their  tips  even  touching  the 
water.  The  swimmer  seized  a  branch,  put  it  between  his 
teeth,  and  held  himself  thus  with  his  head  thrown  back  so 
that  his  mouth  and  nostrils  were  out  of  water  and  able  to 
breathe  the  air. 

He  had  hardly  recovered  his  breath  before  he  heard  a 
plaintive  howl  from  the  spot  where  the  column  had  halted 
and  where  he  himself  had  dropped  into  the  river.  He 
knew  the  sound. 

"Pataud!"  he  murmured;  "Pataud  here,  when  I  sent 
trim  to  Souday  !  Something  has  happened  to  him  !  Oh, 
my  God  !  my  God  !  "  he  cried  with  inexpressible  fervor 
•ind  deep  faith,  "  now,  now  it  is  all-important  to  save  me 
from  being  recaptured." 

The  soldiers  had  seen  Jean  Oullier's  dog  in  the  court- 
yard and  they  recognized  him. 

"  There 's  his  dog  !  there  's  his  dog  !  "  they  cried. 

"  Bravo  !  "  cried  a  sergeant  ;  "  he  '11  help  us  to  catch  his 
master." 

And  he  tried  to  lay  a  hand  on  him.  But  although  the 
poor  animal  seemed  stiff  aud  tired,  he  eluded  the  man's 
grasp,  and  sniffing  the  air  in  the  direction  of  the  current  he 
jumped  into  the  river. 

"  This  way,  comrades,  this  way  !  "  cried  the  sergeant, 
stretching  his  arm  in  the  direction  taken  by  the  dog 
"  He  's  after  his  master." 

VOL.    I.  —  14 


210  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

The  moment  Jean  Oullier  heard  Pataud's  cry  he  put  his 
head  out  of  water,  regardless  of  the  consequences  to  himself. 
He  saw  the  dog  cutting  diagonally  across  the  river,  swim- 
ming directly  for  him  ;  he  knew  he  was  lost  if  he  did  not 
make  some  mighty  effort.  To  sacrifice  his  dog  was  to  Jean 
Oullier  a  supreme  effort.  If  his  own  life  alone  had  been  in 
the  balance  Jean  Oullier  would  have  taken  his  risks  and 
been  lost  or  saved  with  Pataud  ;  at  any  rate  he  would  have 
hesitated  before  he  saved  himself  at  the  cost  of  the  dog's 
life. 

He  quickly  took  off  the  goatskin  cape  he  wore  over  his 
jacket  and  let  it  float  on  the  surface  of  the  water,  giving  it 
a  strong  push  into  the  middle  of  the  current.  Pataud  was 
then  not  twenty  feet  from  him. 

"  Seek  !  fetch  !  "  he  said  in  a  low  voice  showing  the 
direction  to  the  dog,  Then,  as  the  poor  animal,  feeling  no 
doubt  that  his  strength  Avas  leaving  him,  hesitated  to  obey, 

"  Fetch,  Pataud,  fetch  !  "  cried  Jean  Oullier,  imperatively. 

Pataud  turned  and  swam  in  the  direction  of  the  goatskin, 
which  was  now  about  fifty  feet  away  from  him.  Jean 
Oullier,  seeing  that  his  trick  had  succeeded,  dived  again  at 
the  moment  when  the  soldiers  on  the  bank  were  alongside 
the  willow.  One  of  them  carrying  the  torch  scrambled 
quickly  up  the  tree  and  lit  the  whole  bed  of  the  river. 
The  goatskin  was  plainly  seen  floating  rapidly  down  the 
current,  and  Pataud  was  swimming  after  it,  moaning  and 
whining  as  if  distressed  that  his  failing  strength  prevented 
him  from  accomplishing  his  master's  order. 

The  soldiers,  following  the  dog's  lead,  redescended  the 
river,  going  farther  and  farther  away  from  Jean  Oullier. 
As  soon  as  one  of  them  caught  sight  of  the  goatskin  he 
shouted  to  his  comrades  :  — 

"  Here,  friends  !  here  he  is  !  here  he  is,  the  brigand  !  " 
and  he  fired  at  the  goatskin. 

Grenadiers  and  chasseurs  ran  pell-mell  along  both  banks, 
getting  farther  and  farther  from  Jean  Oullier,  and  riddling 
the  goatskin,  after  which  Pataud  was  still  swimming,  with 


fetch!  pataud,  fetch!  211 

their  balls.  For  some  minutes  the  firing  was  so  continuous 
that  there  was  no  need  of  torches;  the  flashes  of  burning 
sulphur  from  the  muskets  lit  up  the  wild  ravine  through 
which  the  Boulogne  flows,  while  the  rocks,  echoing  back  the 
volleys,  redoubled  the  noise. 

The  general  was  the  first  to  discover  the  blunder  of  his 
men. 

"  Stop  the  firing  !  "  he  said  to  the  captain  who  was  still 
beside  him  ;  "  those  fools  have  dropped  the  prey  for  the 
shadow." 

Just  then  a  brilliant  light  shone  from  the  crest  of  the 
rocky  ridge  overhanging  the  river  ;  a  sharp  hiss  sounded 
above  the  heads  of  the  two  officers,  and  a  ball  buried  itself 
in  the  trunk  of  a  tree  beyond  them. 

"  Ah  ha  !  "  exclaimed  the  general,  coolly  ;  "  that  rascal 
only  asked  for  a  dozen  Ave  Marias,  but  his  friends  are 
inclined  to  be  liberal  !  " 

Three  or  four  more  shots  were  now  fired,  and  the  balls 
ricochetted  along  the  shore.  One  man  cried  out.  Then,  in 
a  voice  that  overpowered  the  tumult,  the  general  shouted  : 

"  Bugles,  sound  the  recall  !  and  you,  there,  put  out  the 
torches  !  " 

Then  in  a  low  voice  to  the  captain,  — 

"  Bring  the  other  forty  over  at  once  ;  we  shall  need 
every  man  here  in  a  minute." 

The  soldiers,  startled  by  this  night  attack,  clustered  round 
their  general.  Five  or  six  flashes,  at  rather  long  distances 
apart,  shone  from  the  crest  of  the  ravine,  and  lit  up 
momentarily  the  dark  dome  of  the  sky.  A  grenadier  fell 
dead  ;  the  horse  of  a  chasseur  reared  and  fell  over  on  his 
rider  with  a  ball  through  his  chest. 

"  Forward  !  a  thousand  thunders  !  forward  !  "  cried  the 
general,  "and  let's  see  if  those  night-hawks  will  dare  to 
wait  for  us." 

Putting  himself  at  the  head  of  his  men  he  began  to  climb 
the  slope  of  the  ravine  with  such  vigor  that,  in  spite  of  the 
darkness  which  made  the  ascension  difficult,  and  in  spite  of 


212  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

tin:  balls  which  met  them  and  brought  down  two  more  of 
his  men,  the  little  troop  soon  scaled  the  height.  The 
enemy's  lire  stopped  instantly,  and  though  a  few  shak- 
ing furze-bushes  still  showed  the  recent  presence  of 
Chouans,  it  might  be  thought  that  the  earth  had  opened  and 
swallowed  them  up. 

"  Sad   war  !    sad    war  !  "    muttered   the    general.       "  And 
now,  of  course,  our  whole  expedition  is  a  failure.     No  mat- 
ter !  better  attempt  it.     Besides,  Souday  is  on  the  road  to 
Machecoul,  and  we  can't  rest  our  men  short  of  Machecoul." 
"  But  we  want  a  guide,  general,"  said  the  captain. 
"Guide!     Don't  you  see  that  light,  a  thousand  feet  off, 
over  there?  " 
"Alight?" 

"  Damn  it,  yes  !  —  a  light." 
"No,  I  don't,  general." 

"Well,  I  see  it.  That  light  means  a  hut;  a  hut  means 
a  peasant  ;  and  whether  that  peasant  be  man,  woman,  or 
child,  he  or  she  shall  be  made  to  guide  us  through  the 
forest." 

Then ,  in  a  tone  which  augured  ill  for  the  inhabitant  of 
the  hut,  the  general  gave  orders  to  resume  the  march,  after 
carefully  extending  his  line  of  scouts  and  guards  as  far  as 
he  dared  expose  the  individual  safety  of  his  men. 

The  general,  followed  by  his  little  column,  had  hardly 
passed  out  of  sight  beyond  the  ridge  before  a  man  came 
out  of  the  water,  stopped  an  instant  behind  a  willow  to 
listen  attentively,  and  then  glided  from  bush  to  bush  along 
the  shore,  with  the  evident  intention  of  following  the  path 
the  troop  had  taken. 

As  he  grasped  a  tuft  of  heather  to  begin  the  ascent  he 
heard  a  feeble  moan  at  a  little  distance.  Jean  Oullier  — 
for  of  course  it  was  he  —  turned  instantly  in  the  direction 
of  the  moans.  The  nearer  he  approached  them,  the  more 
distressing  they  became.  The  man  stooped  down  with  his 
hands  stretched  out  and  felt  them  licked  with  a  warm,  soft 
tongue. 


FETCH  !  PATAUD,  FETCH  !  213 

"Pataud!  my  poor  Pataud!  "  murmured  the  Vendéan. 

It  was,  indeed,  poor  Pataud,  who  had  spent  the  last  of 
his  strength  in  dragging  ashore  the  goatskin  his  master 
had  sent  him  for,  on  which  he  had  now  lain  down  to  die. 

Jean  Oullier  took  the  garment  from  under  him,  and 
called  him  by  name.  Pataud  gave  one  long  moan,  but  did 
not  move.  Jean  Oullier  lifted  him  in  his  arms  to  carry 
him;  but  the  dog  no  longer  stirred.  The  Vendéan  felt  the 
hand  with  which  he  held  him  wet  with  a  warm  and  viscous 
fluid.  He  raised  it  to  his  face  and  smelt  the  fetid  odor  of 
blood.  He  tried  to  open  the  jaws  of  the  poor  creature, 
but  they  were  clenched.  Pataud  had  died  in  saving  his 
master,  whom  chance  had  brought  back  to  him  for  a  last 
caress. 

Had  the  dog  been  wounded  by  a  ball  aimed  by  the  sol- 
diers at  the  goatskin,  or  was  he  already  wounded  when  he 
jumped  into  the  water  to  follow  Jean  Oullier? 

The  Vendéan  leaned  to  the  last  opinion.  Pataud's  halt 
beside  the  river,  the  feebleness  with  which  he  swam,  — 
all  induced  Jean  Oullier  to  think  that  the  poor  animal  had 
been  previously  wounded. 

"Well,"  he  said  sadly,  "to-morrow  I  '11  clear  it  up,  and 
sorrow  to  him  who  killed  you,  my  poor  dog!  " 

So  saying,  he  laid  Pataud's  body  beneath  a  shrubby 
bush,  and  springing  up  the  hillside  was  lost  to  sight 
among  the  gorse. 


214  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XXIII. 

TO    WHOM   THE   COTTAGE   BELONGED. 

The  cottage,  where  the  general  had  seen  the  light  his  cap- 
tain could  not  see,  was  occupied  by  two  families.  The 
heads  of  these  families  were  brothers.  The  elder  was 
named  Joseph,  the  younger  Pascal  Picaut.  The  father  of 
these  Picauts  had  taken  part,  in  1792,  in  the  first  uprising 
of  the  Retz  district,  and  followed  the  fortunes  of  the  san- 
guinary Souchu,  as  the  pilot-fish  follows  the  shark,  as  the 
jackal  follows  the  lion  ;  and  he  had  taken  part  in  the  horri- 
ble massacres  which  signalized  the  outbreak  of  the  insur- 
rection on  the  left  bank  of  the  Loire. 

When  Charette  did  justice  on  that  Carrier  of  the  white 
cockade  Souchn,  Picaut,  whose  sanguinary  appetites  were 
developed,  sulked  at  the  new  leader,  who,  to  his  mind, 
made  the  serious  mistake  of  not  desiring  blood  except  upon 
the  battlefield.  He  therefore  left  the  division  under 
Charette,  and  joined  that  commanded  by  the  terrible 
Jolly,  an  old  surgeon  of  Machecoul.  He,  at  least,  was  on 
a  level  with  Picaut's  enthusiasm.  But  Jolly,  recognizing 
the  need  of  unity,  and  instinctively  foreseeing  the  military 
genius  of  the  leader  of  the  Lower  Vendée,  placed  himself 
under  Charette's  banner;  and  Picaut,  who  had  not  been 
consulted,  dispensed  with  consulting  his  commander,  and 
once  more  abandoned  his  comrades.  Tired  out  with  these 
perpetual  changes,  profoundly  convinced  that  time  would 
never  lessen  the  savage  hatred  he  felt  for  the  murderers  of 
Souchu,  he  sought  a  general  who  was  not  likely  to  be 
seduced  by  the  splendor  of  Charette's  exploits,  and  found 


TO   WHOM   THE    COTTAGE    BELONGED.  215 

him  in  Stofflet,  whose  antagonism  against  the  hero  of  the 
Retz  region  was  already  revealed  in  numberless  instances. 

On  the  25th  of  February,  1796,  Stofflet  was  made  pris- 
oner at  the  farm  of  Poitevinière,  with  two  aides-de-camp 
and  two  chasseurs  who  accompanied  him.  The  Vendéan 
leader  and  his  aides  were  shot,  and  the  peasants  were 
sent  back  to  their  cottages.  Picaut  was  one  of  them.  It 
was  then  two  years  since  he  had  seen  his  home. 

Arriving  there,  he  found  two  fine  young  men,  vigorous 
and  well-grown,  who  threw  themselves  upon  his  neck  and 
embraced  him.  They  were  his  sons.  The  eldest  was 
seventeen  years  old,  the  youngest  sixteen.  Picaut  accepted 
their  caresses  with  a  good  grace  and  looked  them  well  over. 
He  examined  their  structure,  their  athletic  frames,  and 
felt  their  muscles  with  evident  satisfaction.  He  had  left 
two  children  behind  him;  he  found  two  soldiers.  Only, 
like  himself,  these  soldiers  were  unarmed. 

The  Republic  had,  in  fact,  taken  from  Picaut  the  carbine 
and  sabre  he  had  obtained  through  English  gold.  But 
Picaut  resolved  that  the  Republic  should  be  generous 
enough  to  return  them  and  to  arm  his  two  sons  in  com- 
pensation for  the  harm  she  had  done  him.  It  is  true  that 
he  did  not  intend  to  consult  the  Republic  on  this  point. 

The  next  day  he  ordered  his  sons  to  take  their  cudgels 
of  wild  apple-wood  and  set  out  with  him  for  Torfou.  At 
Torfou  there  was  a  demi-brigade  of  infantry.  When 
Picaut,  who  marched  by  night  and  scorned  all  regular 
roads,  saw,  as  he  crossed  the  fields,  an  agglomeration  of 
lights  before  him,  which  revealed  the  town  and  showed 
him  he  had  almost  reached  the  end  of  his  journey,  he 
ordered  his  sons  to  continue  to  follow  him,  but  to  imitate 
all  his  movements  and  to  stop  short,  motionless,  the  instant 
they  heard  the  cry  made  by  a  blackbird  when  suddenly 
awakened.  There  is  no  hunter  but  knows  that  the  black- 
bird, suddenly  roused,  utters  three  or  four  rapid  notes 
which  are  quite  peculiar  and  unmistakable. 

Then,  instead  of  walking  forward  as  before,  Picaut  began 


216  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

to  crawl  around  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  in  the  shadow 
of  the  hedges,  listening  every  twenty  steps  or  so,  with  the 
utmost  attention. 

At  last  he  heard  a  step,  —  the  slow,  measured,  monoto- 
nous step  of  one  man.  Picaut  went  flat  on  his  stomach, 
and  continued  to  crawl  toward  the  sound  on  his  knees  and 
elbows.  His  sons  imitated  him.  When  he  came  to  the 
end  of  the  field  he  was  in,  Picaut  made  an  opening  in  the 
hedge  and  looked  through  it.  Being  satisfied  with  what  he 
saw  he  enlarged  the  hole,  and,  without  much  regard  to  the 
thorns  he  encountered,  he  slipped  like  an  adder  through 
the  branches.  When  he  reached  the  other  side  he  gave 
the  cry  of  the  blackbird.  His  sons  stopped  at  the  given 
signal  ;  but  they  stood  up,  and  looking  over  the  top  of  the 
hedge  they  watched  their  father's  proceedings. 

The  field  into  which  Picaut  had  now  passed  was  one  of 
tall  and  very  thick  grass,  which  was  swaying  in  the  wind. 
At  the  farther  end  of  this  field,  about  fifty  yards  off,  was 
the  high-road.  On  this  road  a  sentry  was  pacing  up  and 
down,  about  three  hundred  feet  from  a  building  which  was 
used  as  barracks,  before  the  door  of  which  another  sentry 
was  placed.  The  two  young  men  took  all  this  in  with  a 
single  glance,  and  then  their  eyes  returned  to  their  father, 
who  continued  to  crawl  through  the  grass  in  the  direction 
of  the  sentinel. 

When  Picaut  was  not  more  than  six  feet  from  the  road 
he  stopped  behind  a  bush.  The  sentinel  was  pacing  up 
and  down,  and  each  time  that  he  turned  his  back  toward 
the  town,  as  he  paced  along,  his  clothes  or  his  musket 
touched  the  bush  behind  which  Picaut  was  crouching. 
The  lads  trembled  for  their  father  every  time  that  this 
happened. 

Suddenly,  and  at  a  moment  when  the  wind  seemed  to 
rise,  a  stifled  cry  came  to  them  on  the  breeze.  Then,  with 
that  acuteness  of  vision  which  men  accustomed  to  use  their 
faculties  at  night  soon  acquire,  they  saw  on  the  white  line 
of  road  a  struggling  black  mass.     It  was  Picaut  and  the 


TO   WHOM    THE    COTTAGE    BELONGED.  217 

sentinel.     After  stabbing  the  sentinel  with  a  knife,  Picaut 
was  strangling  him. 

A  moment  later  the  Vendéan  was  on  his  way  back  to  his 
sons;  and  presently,  like  the  she-wolf  after  slaughter 
dividing  her  booty  among  her  cubs,,  he  bestowed  the  mus- 
ket, sabre,  and  cartridges  on  the  youths.  With  this  first 
equipment  for  service  it  was  very  much  easier  to  obtain  a 
second. 

But  weapons  were  not  all  that  Picaut  wanted;  his  object 
was  to  obtain  the  occasion  to  use  them.  He  looked  about 
him.  In  Messieurs  d'Autichamp,  de  Scepeaux,  de  Puisaye, 
and  de  Bourmont,  who  still  kept  the  field,  he  found  only 
what  he  called  rose-water  royalists,  who  did  not  make  war 
in  a  way  to  suit  him,  none  of  them  resembling  Souchu, 
the  type  of  all  that  Picaut  wanted  in  a  leader. 

It  resulted  that  Picaut,  rather  than  be,  as  he  thought, 
ill-commanded,  resolved  to  make  himself  an  independent 
leader  and  command  others.  He  recruited  a  few  malcon- 
tents like  himself,  and  became  the  leader  of  a  band  which, 
though  numerically  small,  never  wearied  in  giving  proofs 
of  its  hatred  to  the  Republic. 

Picaut's  tactics  were  of  the  simplest.  He  lived  in  the 
forests.  During  the  .day  he  and  his  men  rested.  At  night 
he  left  the  sheltering  woods,  and  ambushed  his  little  troop 
behind  the  hedges.  If  a  government  convoy  or  a  diligence 
came  along,  he  attacked  and  robbed  it.  When  convoys 
were  rare  and  diligences  too  strongly  escorted,  Picaut 
found  his  compensation  with  the  pickets  whom  he  shot, 
and  the  farmhouses  and  buildings  of  the  patriots,  which 
he  burned.  After  one  or  two  expeditions  his  followers 
gave  him  the  name  of  "Sans-Quartier."  and  Picaut,  who 
resolved,  conscientious^,  to  deserve  that  title,  never 
failed,  after  its  bestowal,  to  hang,  shoot,  or  disembowel 
all  republicans  —  male  and  female,  citizens  or  soldiers,  old 
men  and  children  —  who  fell  into  his  hands. 

He  continued  his  operations  till  1800.     At  that  period, 
Europe,  leaving  the  First  Consul  some  respite  (or  the  First 


218  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Consul  leaving  Europe  a  respite),  Bonaparte,  who  had  no 
doubt  heard  of  the  fame  of  Picaut  Sans-Quartier's  exploits, 
resolved  to  consecrate  his  leisure  to  that  warrior,  and  sent 
against  him,  not  a  corps  d'armée,  but  two  Chouans, 
recruited  in  the  rue  de  Jérusalem,  and  two  brigades  of 
gendarmerie. 

Picaut,  not  distrustful,  admitted  his  two  false  com- 
patriots into  his  band.  A  few  days  later  he  fell  into  a 
snare.  He  was  caught,  together  with  most  of  his  men, 
and  he  paid  with  his  head  for  the  bloody  renown  he  had 
acquired.  It  was  as  a  highwayman  and  a  robber  of  dili- 
gences, and  not  as  a  soldier,  that  he  was  condemned  to  the 
guillotine  instead  of  being  sbot.  He  went  boldly  to  the 
scaffold,  asking  no  more  quarter  for  himself  than  he  had 
given  to  others. 

Joseph,  his  eldest  son,  was  sent  to  the  galleys  with  those 
of  the  band  who  were  captured.  Pascal,  the  younger, 
escaped  the  trap  laid  for  his  father,  and  took  to  the  forests, 
where  he  continued  to  "  Chouanize  "  with  the  remnants  of 
the  band.  But  this  savage  life  soon  became  intolerable  to 
him,  and  one  fine  day  he  went  to  Beaupréau,  gave  his 
sabre  and  musket  to  the  first  soldier  he  met,  and  asked  to 
be  taken  to  the  commandant  of  the  town,  to  whom  he 
related  his  history. 

This  commandant,  a  major  of  dragoons,  took  an  interest 
in  the  poor  devil,  and,  in  consideration  of  his  youth  and 
the  singular  confidence  with  which  he  had  come  to  him, 
he  offered  young  Picaut  to  enlist  him  in  his  regiment.  In 
case  of  refusal,  he  should,  he  said,  be  obliged  to  hand  him 
over  to  the  legal  authorities.  Before  such  an  alternative 
Pascal  Picaut  (who  had  now  heard  of  the  fate  of  his  father 
and  brother,  and  had  no  desire  to  return  to  his  own  neigh- 
borhood) did  not  hesitate.  He  donned  the  Republican 
uniform. 

Fourteen  years  later  the  two  sons  of  Sans-Quartier  met 
again  and  returned  to  their  former  home,  to  claim  posses- 
sion of  their  father's  little  property.     The  return  of  the 


TO   WHOM   THE   COTTAGE   BELONGED.  219 

Bourbons  had  opened  the  gates  of  the  galleys  for  Joseph 
and  released  Pascal,  who,  from  being  a  brigand  of  La 
Vendée,  was  then  a  brigand  of  the  Loire. 

Joseph,  issuing  from  the  galleys,  returned  to  the  family 
cottage  more  violent  in  feeling  than  ever  his  father  had 
been.  He  burned  to  avenge  in  the  blood  of  patriots  the 
death  of  his  father,  and  his  own  tortures. 

Pascal,  on  the  contrary,  returned  home  with  ideas  quite 
changed  from  his  earlier  ones,  changed  by  the  different 
world  he  had  seen,  and  changed,  above  all,  by  contact  with 
men  to  whom  hatred  of  the  Bourbons  was  a  duty,  the  fall 
of  Napoleon  a  sorrow,  the  entrance  of  the  Allies  a  dis- 
grace, —  feelings  which  were  kept  alive  in  his  heart  by 
the  cross  that  he  wore  on  his  breast. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  these  differences  of  opinion, 
which  led,  of  course,  to  frequent  discussion,  and  in  spite 
of  the  chronic  misunderstanding  between  them,  the  two 
brothers  did  not  separate,  but  continued  to  live  on  in  the 
house  their  father  had  left  them,  and  to  cultivate  on  shares 
the  fields  belonging  to  it.  Both  were  married,  —  Joseph, 
to  the  daughter  of  a  poor  peasant;  Pascal,  to  whom  his 
cross  and  his  little  pension  gave  a  certain  consideration  in 
the  neighborhood,  to  the  daughter  of  a  bourgeois  of  Saint- 
Philbert,  a  patriot  like  himself. 

The  presence  of  two  wives  in  one  house,  each  of  whom 
—  one  from  envy,  the  other  from  rancor  —  exaggerated  the 
sentiments  of  their  husbands,  added  not  a  little  to  the 
household  discord.  Nevertheless,  the  two  brothers  and 
their  families  continued  to  live  together  till  1830.  The 
revolution  of  July,  which  Pascal  approved,  roused  all  the 
fanatical  wrath  of  Joseph.  Pascal's  father-in-law  became 
mayor  of  Saint-Philbert,  and  then  the  Chouan  and  his  wife 
launched  forth  into  such  invectives  and  insults  against 
"those  clumsy  villains  "  that  Madame  Pascal  told  her  hus- 
band she  would  not  live  any  longer  with  galley-slaves,  for 
she  did  not  feel  her  life  was  safe  among  them. 

The  old  soldier  had  no  children,  and  he  was  singularly 


220  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

attached  to  those  of  his  brother.  In  particular  there  was 
a  little  fair-haired  boy,  with  cheeks  as  round  and  as  rosy 
as  a  pigeon-apple,  whom  he  felt  he  could  not  part  with, 
his  chief  pleasure  in  life  being  to  dandle  the  fellow  on  his 
knee  for  hours  together.  Pascal  felt  his  heart  wrung  at 
the  very  thought  of  losing  his  adopted  son.  In  spite  of 
the  wrongs  done  him  by  his  elder  brother,  he  was  strongly 
attached  to  him.  He  knew  he  was  impoverished  by  the 
costs  of  his  large  fainilj*  ;  he  feared  that  the  separation 
might  cast  him  into  utter  poverty,  and  he  therefore  refused 
his  wile's  request.  But  he  so  far  regarded  it  that  the  two 
families  ceased  to  take  their  meals  together.  The  house 
had  three  rooms,  and  Pascal  retired  into  one,  leaving  two 
for  his  brother's  family  and  walling  up  the  door  of 
communication. 

The  evening  of  the  day  on  which  Jean  Oullier  was  made 
prisoner,  the  wife  of  Pascal  Picaut  was  very  uneasy.  Her 
husband  had  left  home  at  four  in  the  afternoon,  —  about 
the  time  when  General  Dermoncourt  and  his  detachment 
started  from  Montaigu.  Pascal  had  to  go,  he  said,  and 
settle  some  accounts  with  Courtin  at  la  Logerie  ;  and  now, 
although  it  was  nearly  eight  o'clock,  he  had  not  returned. 
The  poor  woman's  uneasiness  became  agony  when  she 
heard  the  shots  in  the  direction  of  the  river.  From  time 
to  time  she  left  her  wheel,  on  which  she  was  spinning 
beside  the  fire,  and  went  to  listen  at  the  door.  After  the 
firing  ceased  she  heard  nothing  except  the  wind  in  the  tree- 
tops  and  the  plaintive  whine  of  a  dog  in  the  distance. 

Little  Louis,  the  child  whom  Pascal  loved  so  much, 
came  to  ask  if  his  uncle  had  returned;  but  hardly  had  he 
put  his  rosy  little  face  into  the  room  before  his  mother, 
calling  him  harshly  back,  obliged  him  to  disappear. 

For  several  days  Joseph  Picaut  had  shown  himself  more 
surly,  more  threatening  than  ever;  and  that  very  morning, 
before  starting  for  the  fair  at  Montaigu,  he  had  had  a  scene 
with  his  brother,  which  if  Pascal's  patience  had  not  held 
good,  might  have  ended  in  a  scuffle.     The  latter's  wife 


TO   WHOM    THE    COTTAGE    BELONGED.  221 

dared    not   say   a   word    to   her    sister-in-law   about    her 
uneasiness. 

Suddenly  she  heard  voices  muttering  in  mysterious, 
low  tones  in  the  orchard  before  the  cottage.  She  rose  so 
hastily  that  she  knocked  over  her  spinning-wheel.  At  the 
same  instant  the  door  opened,  and  Joseph  Picaut  appeared 
on  the  threshold. 


222  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XXIV. 

HOW    MARIANNE   PICAUT    MOURNED    HER   HUSBAND. 

The  presence  of  her  brother-in-law,  whom  Marianne 
Picaut  did  not  expect  at  that  time,  and  a  vague  presenti- 
ment of  misfortune  which  came  over  her  at  the  sight  of 
him,  produced  such  a  painful  impression  on  the  poor 
woman  that  she  fell  back  into  her  chair,  half  dead  with 
terror. 

Joseph  advanced  slowly,  without  uttering  a  word  to  his 
brother's  wife,  who  stared  at  him  as  though  she  saw  a 
ghost.  When  he  reached  the  fireplace  Joseph  Picaut,  still 
silent,  took  a  chair,  sat  down,  and  began  to  stir  the  embers 
on  the  hearth  with  a  stick  which  he  carried  in  his  hand. 
In  the  circle  of  light  thrown  by  the  fire  Marianne  could  see 
that  he  was  very  pale. 

"In  the  name  of  the  good  God,  Joseph,"  she  said,  "tell 
me  what  is  the  matter?  " 

"Who  were  those  villains  who  came  here  to-night, 
Marianne?  "  asked  the  Chouan,  answering  one  question  by 
asking  another. 

"No  one  came  here,"  she  replied,  shaking  her  head  to 
give  force  to  her  denial.  Then  she  added,  "  Joseph,  have 
you  seen  your  brother?  " 

"Who  persuaded  him  away  from  home?  "  continued  the 
Chouan,  still  questioning,  and  making  no  reply. 

"No  one,  I  tell  you.  He  left  home  about  four  o'clock 
to  go  to  La  Logerie  and  pay  the  mayor  for  that  buckwheat 
he  bought  for  you  last  week." 

"The  mayor  of  La  Logerie?"  said  Joseph  Picaut,  frown- 
ing.    "Yes,   yes!     Maître  Courtin.     A  bold  villain,   he! 


HOW  MARIANNE  PICAUT  MOURNED  HER  HUSBAND.      223 

Many  's  the  time  I  've  told  Pascal,  — and  this  very  morn- 
ing I  repeated  it,  — 'Don't  tempt  the  God  you  deny,  or 
some  harm  will  happen  to  you.  '  " 

"  Joseph  !  Joseph  !  "  cried  Marianne  ;  "  how  dare  you 
mingle  the  name  of  God  with  words  of  hatred  against  your 
brother  who  loves  you  so,  you  and  yours,  that  he  'd  take 
the  bread  out  of  his  own  mouth  to  give  it  to  your  children  ! 
If  an  evil  fate  brings  civil  war  into  the  land  that 's  no  rea- 
son why  you  should  bring  it  into  our  home.  Good  God  ! 
Keep  your  own  opinions  and  let  Pascal  keep  his.  His  are 
inoffensive,  but  yours  are  not.  His  gun  stays  hooked  over 
the  fireplace,  he  meddles  with  no  intrigues,  and  threatens 
no  party;  whereas,  for  the  last  six  months  there  has  not 
been  a  day  you  have  n't  gone  out  armed  to  the  teeth,  and 
sworn  evil  to  the  townspeople,  of  whom  my  father  is  one, 
and  even  to  my  family  itself." 

"Better  go  out  with  a  musket  and  face  the  villains  than 
betray  those  among  whom  you  live,  like  a  coward,  and 
guide  another  army  of  Blues  into  the  midst  of  us,  that 
they  may  pillage  the  château  of  those  who  have  kept  the 
faith." 

"Who  has  guided  the  Blues?  " 

"Pascal." 

"When?  where?" 

"To-night;  at  the  ford  of  Pont-Parcy." 

"  Good  God  !  It  was  from  there  the  shots  came  !  "  cried 
Marianne. 

Suddenly  the  eyes  of  the  poor  woman  became  fixed  and 
haggard.     They  lighted  on  Joseph's  hands. 

"You  have  blood  on  your  hands!"  she  cried.  "Whose 
blood  is  it?     Joseph,  tell  me  that!     Whose  blood  is  it?  " 

The  Chouan's  first  movement  was  to  hide  his  hands,  but 
he  thought  better  of  it,  and  brazened  the  matter  out. 

"That  blood,"  he  answered,  his  face,  which  had  been 
pale,  becoming  purple,  is  the  blood  of  a  traitor  to  his  God, 
his  country,  and  his  king.  It  is  the  blood  of  a  man  who 
forgot  that  the  Blues  had  sent  his  father  to  the  scaffold 


224  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

and  his  brother  to  the  galleys,  —  a  man  who  did  not  shrink 
from  taking  service  with  the  Blues." 

"  You  have  killed  my  husband  !  you  have  murdered  your 
brother  !  "  cried  Marianne,  facing  Joseph  with  savage 
violence. 

"No,  I  did  not." 

"You  lie." 

"I  swear  I  did  not." 

"  Then  if  you  swear  you  did  not,  swear  also  that  you  will 
help  me  to  avenge  him." 

"Help  you  to  avenge  him  !  I,  Joseph  Picaut?  Never  !  " 
said  the  Chouau,  in  a  determined  voice.  "For  though  I 
did  not  kill  him,  I  approved  of  those  who  did;  and  if  I  had 
been  in  their  place,  though  he  were  my  brother,  I  swear 
by  our  Lord  that  I  would  have  done  as  they  did.  " 

"Kepeat  that,"  said  Marianne;  "for  I  hope  I  did  not 
hear  you  right." 

The  Chouan  repeated  his  speech,  word  for  word. 

"Then  I  curse  you,  as  I  curse  them  !  "  cried  Marianne, 
raising  her  hand  with  a  terrible  gesture  above  her  brother- 
in-law's  head.  "  That  vengeance  which  you  refuse  to  take. 
in  which  I  now  include  you,  — you,  your  brother's  mur- 
derer in  heart,  if  not  in  deed,  —  God  and  I  will  accomplish 
together;  and  if  God  fails  me,  then  I  alone  !  And  now," 
she  added,  with  an  energy  which  completely  subdued  the 
Chouan,  "  where  is  he?  What  have  they  done  with  his  body? 
Speak  !     You  intend  to  return  me  his  body,  don't  you?  " 

"When  I  got  to  the  place,  after  hearing  the  guns,"  said 
Joseph,  "he  was  still  alive.  I  took  him  in  my  arms  to 
bring  him  here,  but  he  died  on  the  way." 

"  And  then  you  threw  him  into  the  ditch  like  a  dog,  you 
Cain  !  Oh  !  I  would  n't  believe  that  story  when  I  read  it 
in  the  Bible  !  " 

"  No,  I  did  not,  "  said  Joseph  ;  "  I  have  laid  him  in  the 
orchard." 

"  My  God  !  my  God  !  "  cried  the  poor  woman,  whose 
whole  body  was  shaken  with  a  convulsive  movement. 
" Perhaps   you    are   mistaken,    Joseph;    perhaps   he   still 


HOW  MARIANNE  PICAUT  MOURNED  HEK  HUSBAN  225 

breathes,  and  we  may  save  him.  Come,  Joseph,  come  ! 
If  we  find  him  living  I  '11  forgive  you  for  being  friends 
with  your  brother's  murderers." 

She  unhooked  the  lamp,  and  sprang  toward  the  door. 
But  instead  of  following  her,  Joseph  Picaut,  who  for  the 
last  few  moments  had  been  listening  to  a  noise  without, 
hearing  that  the  sounds  —  evidently  those  of  a  body  of 
marching  men  —  were  approaching  the  cottage,  darted  from 
the  door,  ran  round  the  buildings,  jumped  the  hedge 
between  them  and  the  fields,  and  took  the  direction  of  the 
forest  of  Machecoul,  the  black  masses  of  which  loomed  up 
in  the  distance. 

Poor  Marianne,  left  alone,  ran  hither  and  thither  in  the 
orchard.  Bewildered  and  almost  maddened,  she  swung 
her  lamp  about  her,  forgetting  to  look  in  the  circle  of  light 
it  threw,  and  fancying  that  her  eyes  must  pierce  the  dark- 
ness to  find  her  husband.  Suddenly,  passing  a  spot  she 
had  passed  already  once  or  twice,  she  stumbled  and  nearly 
fell.  Her  hand,  stretched  out  to  save  herself  from  the 
ground,  came  in  contact  with  a  human  body. 

She  gave  a  great  cry  and  threw  herself  on  the  corpse, 
clasping  it  tightly.  Then,  lifting  it  in  her  arms,  as  she 
might,  under  other  circumstances,  have  lifted  a  child,  she 
carried  her  husband's  body  into  the  cottage  and  laid  it  on 
the  bed. 

In  spite  of  the  jarring  relations  of  the  two  families, 
Joseph's  wife  came  into  Pascal's  room.  Seeing  the  body 
of  her  brother-in-law,  she  fell  upon  her  knees  beside  the 
bed  and  sobbed. 

Marianne  took  the  light  her  sister-in-law  brought  with 
her  —  for  hers  was  left  in  the  orchard  —  and  turned  it  full 
upon  her  husband's  face.  His  mouth  and  eyes  were  open, 
as  though  he  still  lived.  His  wife  put  her  hand  eagerly 
upon  his  heart,  but  it  did  not  beat.  Then,  turning  to  her 
sister-in-law,  who  was  weeping  and  praying  beside  lier, 
the  widow  of  Pascal  Picaut,  with  blood-shot  eyes  flaming 
like  firebrands,  cried  out  :  — 

VOL.    I.  —  15 


226  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Behold  what  the  Chouans  have  done  to  my  husband,  — 
what  Joseph  has  done  to  his  brother  !  Well,  here  upon 
this  body,  I  swear  to  have  no  peace  nor  rest  until  those 
murderers  have  paid  the  price  of  blood." 

"You  shall  not  wait  long,  poor  woman,  or  I  '11  lose  my 
name,"  said  a  man's  voice  behind  her. 

Both  women  turned  round  and  saw  an  officer  wrapped 
in  a  cloak,  who  had  entered  without  their  hearing  him. 
Bayonets  were  glittering  in  the  darkness  outside  the  door, 
and  they  now  heard  the  snorting  of  horses  who  snuffed  the 
blood. 

"  Who  are  you?  "  asked  Marianne. 

"An  old  soldier,  like  your  husband,  — one  who  has  seen 
battlefields  enough  to  have  the  right  to  tell  you  not  to 
lament  the  death  of  one  who  dies  for  his  country,  but  to 
avenge  him." 

"I  do  not  lament,  monsieur,"  replied  the  widow,  raising 
her  head,  and  shaking  back  her  fallen  hair.  "  What  brings 
you  to  this  cottage  at  the  same  time  as  death?  " 

"  Your  husband  was  to  serve  as  guide  to  an  expedition 
that  is  important  for  the  peace  and  safety  of  your  unhappy 
country.  This  expedition  may  prevent  the  flow  of  blood 
and  the  destruction  of  many  lives  for  a  lost  cause.  Can 
you  give  me  another  guide  to  replace  him?  " 

"  Shall  you  meet  the  Chouans  on  your  expedition?  " 
asked  Marianne. 

"  Probably  we  shall,  "  replied  the  officer. 

"Then  I  will  guide  you,"  said  the  widow,  unhooking 
her  husband's  gun,  which  was  hanging  above  the  mantel. 
"Where  do  you  wish  to  go?  I  will  take  you.  You  can 
pay  me  in  cartridges." 

"We  wish  to  go  to  the  château  de  Souday." 

"Very  good;  I  can  guide  you.     I  know  the  way." 

Casting  a  last  look  at  her  husband's  body,  the  widow  of 
Pascal  Picaut  left  the  house,  followed  by  the  general.  The 
wife  of  Joseph  Picaut  remained  on  her  knees,  praying, 
beside  the  corpse  of  her  brother-in-law. 


LOVE   LENDS   OPINIONS.  227 


XXV. 

IN   WHICH    LOVE   LENDS    POLITICAL   OPINIONS   TO   THOSE   WHO 
HAVE   NONE. 

We  left  the  young  Baron  Michel  on  the  verge  of  coming  to 
a  great  resolution.  Only,  just  as  he  was  about  to  act  upon 
it,  he  heard  steps  outside  his  room.  Instantly  he  throw 
himself  on  his  bed  and  closed  his  eyes,  keepiug  his  ears 
open. 

The  steps  passed;  then  a  few  moments  later  they  repassed 
his  door,  but  without  pausing.  They  were  not  those  of  his 
mother,  nor  were  they  in  quest  of  him.  He  opened  his 
eyes,  sat  up  on  the  bed,  and  began  to  think.  His  reflec- 
tions were  serious. 

Either  he  must  break  away  from  his  mother,  whose 
slightest  word  was  law  to  him,  renounce  all  the  ambitions 
ideas  she  centred  on  him,  —  ideas  which  had  hitherto  been 
most  attractive  to  his  vacillating  mind,  —  he  must  bid 
farewell  to  the  honors  the  dynasty  of  July  was  pledged  to 
bestow  on  the  millionnaire  youth,  and  plunge  into  a  struggle 
which  would  undoubtedly  be  a  bloody  one,  leading  to  con- 
fiscation, exile,  and  death,  while  his  own  good  sense  and 
judgment  told  him  it  was  futile;  or  else  he  must  resign 
himself  and  give  up  Mary. 

Let  us  say  at  once  that  Michel,  although  he  reflected, 
did  not  hesitate.  Obstinacy  is  the  first  outcome  of  weak- 
ness, which  is  capable  of  being  obstinate  even  to  ferocity. 
Besides,  too  many  other  good  reasons  spurred  the  young 
baron  to  allow  him  to  succumb. 

In  the  first  place,  duty  and  honor  both  recpiired  him  to 
warn  the  Comte  de  Bonneville  of  the  dangers  that  might 


228  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

threaten  hiui  and  the  person  who  was  with  him.  Michel 
already  reproached  himself  for  his  delay  in  doing  so. 

Accordingly,  after  a  few  moments'  careful  reflection, 
Michel  decided  on  his  course.  In  spite  of  his  mother's 
watchfulness,  he  had  read  novels  enough  to  know  that  if 
occasion  came,  a  simple  pair  of  sheets  could  make  an  all- 
sufficient  ladder.  Naturally  enough,  this  was  the  first 
thought  that  came  into  his  mind.  Unfortunately,  the 
windows  of  his  bedroom  were  directly  over  those  of  the 
kitchen,  where  he  would  infallibly  be  seen  when  he  flut- 
tered down  through  mid-air,  although,  as  we  have  said, 
darkness  was  just  beginning.  Moreover,  the  height  was 
really  so  great  from  his  windows  to  the  ground  that  in 
spite  of  his  resolution  to  concpier,  at  the  cost  of  a  thousand 
dangers,  the  heart  of  her  whom  he  loved,  he  felt  cold 
chills  running  down  his  back  at  the  mere  idea  of  being 
suspended  by  such  a  fragile  hold  above  an  abyss. 

In  front  of  his  windows  was  a  tall  Canadian  poplar,  the 
branches  of  which  were  about  six  feet  from  his  balcony. 
To  climb  down  that  poplar,  inexperienced  though  he  was 
in  all  athletic  exercises,  seemed  to  him  easy  enough,  but 
how  to  reach  its  branches  was  a  problem;  for  the  young 
man  dared  not  trust  to  the  elasticity  of  his  limbs  and  take 
a  spring. 

Necessity  made  him  ingenious.  He  had  in  his  room  a 
quantity  of  fishing-tackle,  which  he  had  lately  been  using 
against  the  carp  and  roach  in  the  lake  of  Grand-Lieu,  — an 
innocent  pleasure,  which  maternal  solicitude  had  author- 
ized. He  selected  a  rod,  fastened  a  hook  at  the  end  of  the 
line,  and  put  the  whole  beside  the  window.  Then  he  went 
to  his  bed  and  took  a  sheet.  At  one  end  of  the  sheet  he 
tied  a  candlestick,  —  he  wanted  an  article  with  some 
weight;  a  candlestick  came  in  his  way,  and  he  took  a  can- 
dlestick. He  flung  this  candlestick  in  such  a  way  that  it 
fell  on  the  other  side  of  the  stoutest  limb  of  the  poplar. 
Then  with  his  hook  and  line  he  fished  in  the  end  of  the 
sheet,  and  brought  it  back  to  him. 


LOVE   LENDS   OPINIONS.  229 

After  this  he  tied  both  ends  firmly  to  the  railing  of  his 
balcony,  and  he  thus  had  a  sort  of  suspension-bridge,  solid 
beyond  all  misadventure,  between  his  window  and  the  pop- 
lar. The  young  man  got  astride  of  it,  like  a  sailor  on  a 
yard-arm,  and  gently  propelling  himself  along,  he  was 
soon  in  the  tree,  and  next  on  the  ground.  Then,  without 
caring  whether  he  was  seen  or  not,  he  crossed  the  lawn 
at  a  run  and  went  toward  Souday,  the  road  to  which  he 
now  knew  better  than  any  other. 

When  he  reached  the  heights  of  Servière  he  heard  mus- 
ketry, which  seemed  to  come  from  somewhere  between 
Montaigu  and  the  lake  of  Grand-Lieu.  His  emotion  was 
great.  The  echo  of  every  volley  that  came  to  him  on  the 
breeze  produced  a  painful  commotion  in  his  mind,  which 
reacted  on  his  heart.  The  sounds  evidently  indicated  dan- 
ger, perhaps  even  death  to  her  he  loved,  and  this  thought 
paralyzed  him  with  terror.  Then  when  he  reflected  that 
Mary  might  blame  him  for  the  troubles  he  had  not  averted 
from  her  head  and  from  those  of  her  father  and  sister  and 
friends,  the  tears  filled  his  eyes. 

Consequently,  instead  of  slackening  speed  when  he 
heard  the  firing,  he  only  thought  of  quickening  it.  From 
a  rapid  walk  he  broke  into  a  run,  and  soon  reached  the 
first  trees  of  the  forest  of  Machecoul.  There,  instead  of 
following  the  road,  which  would  have  delayed  him  several 
minutes,  he  flung  himself  into  a  wood-path  that  he  had 
taken  more  than  once  for  the  very  purpose  of  shortening 
the  way. 

Hurrying  beneath  the  dark,  overhanging  dome  of  trees, 
falling  sometimes  into  ditches,  stumbling  over  stones, 
catching  on  thorny  briers,  —  so  dense  was  the  darkness,  so 
narrow  the  way,  — he  presently  reached  what  was  called  the 
Devil's  Yale.  There  he  was  in  the  act  of  jumping  a  brook 
which  runs  in  the  depths  of  it,  when  a  man,  springing 
abruptly  from  a  clump  of  gorse,  seized  him  so  roughly  that 
he  knocked  him  down  into  the  slimy  bed  of  the  brook, 
pressing  the  cold  muzzle  of  a  pistol  to  his  forehead. 


230  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Not  a  cry,  not  a  word,  or  you  are  a  dead  man  !  "  said 
the  assailant. 

The  position  was  a  frightful  one  for  the  young  baron. 
The  man  put  a  knee  on  his  chest,  and  held  him  down, 
remaining  motionless  himself,  as  though  he  were  expecting 
some  one.  At  last,  finding  that  no  one  came,  he  gave  the 
cry  of  the  screch-owl,  which  was  instantly  answered  from 
the  interior  of  the  wood,  and  the  rapid  steps  of  a  man  were 
heard  approaching. 

"Is  that  you,  Picaut?  "  said  the  man  whose  knee  was  on 
Michel's  breast. 

"  No,  not  Picaut  ;  it  is  I,  "  said  the  new-comer. 

"Who  is  <I'?" 

"Jean  Chillier." 

"Jean  Oullier  !  "  cried  the  other,  with  such  joy  that  he 
raised  himself  partially,  and  thus  relieved,  to  some  extent, 
his  prisoner.  "Really  and  truly  you?  Did  you  actually 
get  away  from  the  red-breeches?  " 

"Yes,  thanks  to  all  of  you,  my  friends.  But  we  have 
not  a  minute  to  lose  if  we  want  to  escape  a  great  disaster."' 

"What 's  to  be  done?  Now  that  you  are  free  and  her:' 
with  us,  all  will  go  well." 

"How  many  men  have  you?" 

"Eight  on  leaving  Montaigu;  but  the  gars  of  Yieill'  • 
Vigne  joined  us.  We  must  be  sixteen  or  eighteen  by  this 
time." 

"How  many  guns?  " 

"Each  man  has  one." 

"Good.     Where  are  they  stationed?  " 

"  Along  the  edge  of  the  forest.  " 

"Bring  them  together." 

"Yes." 

"You  know  the  crossway  at  the  Ragots?  " 

"Like  my  pocket." 

"  Wait  for  the  soldiers  there,  not  in  ambush  but  openly. 
Order  fire  when  they  are  within  twenty  paces.  Kill  all 
you  can,  —  so  much  vermin  the  less." 


LOVE   LENDS   OPINIONS.  231 

"Yes.     And  then?" 

"As  soon  as  your  guns  are  discharged  separate  in  two 
bodies,  — one  to  escape  by  the  path  to  La  Cloutière,  the 
other  by  the  road  to  Bourgnieux.  Fire  as  you  run,  and 
coax  them  to  follow  you.*' 

"To  get  them  off  their  track,  hey?  " 

"Precisely,  Guérin;  that's  it." 

"Yes;  but  — you?" 

"I  must  get  to  Souday.     I  ought  to  be  there  now." 

"Oh,  oh,  Jean  Oullier  !  "  exclaimed  the  peasant, 
doubtfully. 

"Well,  what?"  asked  Jean  Oullier.  "Does  any  one 
dare  to  distrust  me?  " 

"No  one  says  they  distrust  you;  they  only  say  they 
don't  trust  any  one  else." 

"I  tell  you  I  must  be  at  Souday  in  ten  minutes,  and 
when  Jean  Oullier  says  'I  must,'  it  is  because  it  must  be 
done.  If  you  can  delay  the  soldiers  half  an  hour  that 's 
all  I  want." 

"  Jean  Oullier  !     Jean  Oullier  !  " 

"What?" 

"  Suppose  I  can't  make  the  gars  wait  for  the  soldiers  in 
the  open?  " 

"Order  them  in  the  name  of  the  good  God." 

"  If  it  were  you  who  ordered  them  they  would  obey  ;  but 
me  —  Besides,  there's  Joseph  Picaut  among  them,  and 
you  know  Joseph  Picaut  will  only  do  as  he  chooses." 

"But  if  I  don't  go  to  Souday  I  have  no  one  to  send." 

"Let  me  go,  Monsieur  Jean  Oullier,"  said  a  voice  from 
the  earth. 

"Who  spoke?  "  said  the  wolf -keeper. 

"A  prisoner  I  have  just  made,"  said  Guérin. 

"What's  his  name?" 

"I  did  not  ask  his  name." 

"I  am  the  Baron  de  la  Logerie,"  said  the  young  man, 
managing  to  sit  up;  for  the  Chouan's  grip  was  loosened 
and  he  had  more  freedom  to  move  and  breathe. 


232  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Ah!  Michel's  son  !  You  here  !  "  muttered  Jean  Oullier, 
in  a  savage  voice. 

"Yes.  When  Monsieur  Guérin  stopped  me  I  was  on  my 
way  to  Souday  to  warn  my  friend  Bonneville  and  Petit- 
Pierre  that  their  presence  in  the  château  was  known." 

"How  came  you  to  know  that?  " 

"I  heard  it  last  evening.  I  overheard  a  conversation 
between  my  mother  and  Courtin." 

"Then  why,  as  you  had  such  fine  intentions,  didn't  you 
go  sooner  to  warn  your  friend?  "  retorted  Jean  Oullier,  in 
a  tone  of  doubt  and  also  of  sarcasm. 

"Because  the  baroness  locked  me  into  my  room,  and  that 
room  is  on  the  second  floor,  and  I  could  not  get  out  till 
to-night  through  the  window,  and  then  at  the  risk  of  my 
life." 

Jean  Oullier  reflected  a  moment.  His  prejudice  against 
all  that  came  from  la  Logerie  was  so  intense,  his  hatred 
against  all  that  bore  the  name  of  Michel  so  deep,  that  he 
could  not  endure  to  accept  a  service  from  the  young  man. 
In  fact,  in  spite  of  the  latter's  ingenuous  frankness,  the 
distrustful  Vendéan  suspected  that  such  a  show  of  good- 
will meant  treachery.  He  knew,  however,  that  Guérin  was 
right,  and  that  he  alone  in  a  crucial  moment  could  give  the 
Chouans  confidence  enough  in  themselves  to  let  the  enemy 
come  openly  up  to  them,  and  therefore  that  he  alone  could 
delay  their  march  to  Souday.  On  the  other  hand,  he  felt 
that  Michel  could  explain  to  the  Comte  de  Bonneville 
better  than  any  peasant  the  danger  that  threatened  him, 
and  so  he  resigned  himself,  though  sulkily,  to  be  under  an 
obligation  to  one  of  the  Michel  family. 

"Ah,  wolf-cub!"  he  muttered,  "I  can't  help  myself." 
Then  aloud,  "Very  well,  so  be  it.  Go!"  lie  said;  "but 
have  you  the  legs  to  do  it?  " 

"Steel  legs." 

"Hum  !  "  grunted  Jean  Oullier. 

"If  Mademoiselle  Bertha  were  here  she  would  certify  to 
them." 


LOVE    LENDS    OPINIONS.  233 

"Mademoiselle  Bertha!"  exclaimed  Jean  Oullier, 
frowning. 

"Yes;  I  fetched  the  doctor  for  old  Tingny,  and  I  took 
only  fifty  minutes  to  go  seven  miles  and  a  half  there  and 
back." 

Jean  Oullier  shook  his  head  like  a  man  who  is  far  from 
being  satisfied. 

"Do  you  look  after  your  enemies,"  said  Michel,  "and 
rely  on  me.  If  it  takes  you  ten  minutes  to  get  to  Souday 
it  will  take  me  five,  I  '11  answer  for  that." 

And  the  young  man  shook  from  his  clothes  the  mud  and 
slime  with  which  he  was  covered,  and  prepared  to  depart. 

"Do  you  know  the  way?  "  asked  Jean  Oullier. 

"Know  the  way!  As  well  as  I  do  the  paths  at  la 
Logerie."  And  darting  off  in  the  direction  of  Souday,  he 
called  back,  "  Good  luck  to  you,  Monsieur  Jean  Oullier  !  " 

Jean  Oullier  stood  thoughtful  a  moment.     The  knowl 
edge  the  young  baron  declared  he  possessed  of  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  château  greatly  annoyed  him. 

"Well,  well,"  he  growled  at  last,  "we'll  put  that  in 
order  when  we  get  time."  Then  addressing  Gue'rin, 
"Come,"  said  he,   "call  up  the  gars." 

The  Chouan  took  off  one  of  his  wooden  shoes  and  put- 
ting it  to  his  mouth  he  blew  into  it  in  a  way  that  exactly 
represented  the  howling  of  wolves. 

"Do  you  think  they  '11  hear  that?"  asked  Jean  Oullier. 

"Of  course  they  will.  I  chose  the  farthest  place  to 
windward  to  make  sure  of  it." 

"Then  we  had  better  not  wait  for  them  here.  Let  us 
get  to  the  Ragot  cross  ways.  Keep  on  calling  as  you  go 
along;  we  shall  gain  time  that  way." 

"How  much  time  have  we  in  advance  of  the  soldiers?" 
asked  Guérin,  following  Jean  Oullier  rapidly  through  the 
brake. 

"A  good  half -hour  and  more.  They  have  halted  at  the 
farm  of  Pichardière." 

"Pichardière  !  "  exclaimed  Guèrin. 


234  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Yes.  They  have  probably  waked  up  Pascal  Picaut, 
who  will  guide  them.     He  is  a  man  to  do  that  is  u't  he?  " 

"Pascal  Picaut  won't  serve  as  guide  to  any  one.  He  '11 
never  wake  up  again,"  said  Guérin,  gloomily. 

"Ah!"  exclaimed  Jean  Oullier;  ''then  it  was  he  just 
now,  was  it?  " 

"Yes,  it  was  he." 

"Did  you  kill  him?" 

"He  struggled  and  called  for  help.  The  soldiers  were 
within  gunshot  of  us;  we  had  to  kill  him." 

"  Poor  Pascal  !  "  said  Jean  Oullier. 

"Yes,"  said  Guérin,  "though  he  belonged  to  the  scoun- 
drels, he  was  a  fine  man." 

"And  his  brother?  "  asked  Jean  Oullier. 

"His  brother?" 

"Yes,  Joseph." 

"He  stood  looking  on." 

Jean  Oullier  shook  himself  like  a  wolf  who  receives  a 
charge  of  buckshot  in  the  flank.  That  powerful  nature 
accepted  all  the  consequences  of  the  terrible  struggle  which 
is  the  natural  outcome  of  civil  wars,  but  he  had  not  fore- 
seen this  horror,  and  he  shuddered  at  the  thought  of  it. 
To  conceal  his  emotion  from  Guérin  he  hurried  his  steps 
and  bounded  through  the  undergrowth  as  rapidly  as  though 
following  his  hounds. 

Guérin,  who  stopped  from  time  to  time  to  howl  in  his 
shoe,  had  some  trouble  in  following.  Suddenly  he  heard 
Jean  Oullier  give  a  low  whistle  warning  him  to  halt. 

They  were  then  at  a  part  of  the  forest  called  the  springs 
of  Baugé,  only  a  short  distance  from  the  crossways. 


THE  SPRINGS   OF   BAUGÉ.  235 


XXVI. 

THE   SPRINGS   OF    BAUGÉ. 

The  springs  of  Baugé  are  realty  marshes,  or  rather  a  marsh, 
above  which  the  road  leading  to  Souday  rises  steeply.  It 
is  one  of  the  most  abrupt  ascents  of  this  mountain  forest. 

The  column  of  the  ''red-breeches,"  as  Guérin  called  the 
soldiers,  was  obliged  to  first  cross  the  marsh  and  then 
ascend  the  steep  incline.  Jean  Oullier  had  reached  the 
part  of  the  road  where  it  crosses  this  bog  on  piles  before 
the  ascent  begins.  From  there  he  had  whistled  to  Guerin, 
who  found  him  apparently  reflecting. 

"  What  are  you  thinking  of?  "  asked  Guérin. 

"  I  am  thinking  that  perhaps  this  is  a  better  place  than 
the  crossways,"  replied  Jean  Oullier. 

"Yes,"  said  Guérin;  "for  here  's  a  wagon  behind  which 
we  can  ambush." 

Jean  Oullier,  who  had  not  before  noticed  it,  now  exam- 
ined the  object  his  companion  pointed  out  to  him.  It  was 
a  heavy  cart  loaded  with  wood,  which  the  driver  had  left 
for  the  night  beside  the  marsh,  fearing,  no  doubt,  to  cross 
the  narrow  causeway  after  dusk. 

"I  have  an  idea,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  looking  alternately 
at  the  cart  and  at  the  hill,  which  rose  like  a  dark  rampart 
on  the  other  side  of  the  bog.     "  Only ,  they  must  —  " 

He  looked  all  about  him. 

"Who  must?     What?" 

"The  gars  must  be  here." 

"They  are  here,"  said  Guerin.  "See,  here's  Patry, 
the  two  Gambier  brothers,  and  there  are  the  Vieille- Vigne 
men  and  Joseph  Picaut." 


236  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Jean  Oullier  turned  his  back  so  as  not  to  see  tne 
latter. 

It  was  true  enough;  the  Chouans  were  flocking  up  on 
all  sides.  First  one  and  then  another  came  from  behind 
each  bush  and  hedge.     Soon  they  were  all  collected. 

"Gars/"  said  Jean  Oullier,  addressing  them,  "Ever 
since  La  Vendée  was  La  Vendée,  — that  is,  ever  since  she 
has  fought  for  her  principles,  —  her  children  have  never 
been  called  upon  to  show  their  courage  and  their  faith 
more  than  they  are  to-day.  If  we  cannot  now  stop  the 
march  of  Louis  Philippe's  soldiers  great  misfortunes  will 
happen;  I  tell  you,  my  sons,  that  all  the  glory  which 
covers  the  name  of  La  Vendée  will  be  wiped  out.  As  for 
me,  I  am  resolved  to  leave  my  bones  in  the  bog  of  Baugé 
sooner  than  allow  that  infernal  column  of  troops  to  go 
beyond   it." 

"  So  are  we,  Jean  Oullier  !  "  cried  many  voices. 

"Good!"  that  is  what  I  expected  from  men  who  fol- 
lowed us  from  Montaigu  to  deliver  me,  and  who  succeeded. 
Come,  to  begin  with,  help  me  to  drag  this  cart  to  the  top 
of  the  hill." 

"We  '11  try,"  said  the  Vendéans. 

Jean  Oullier  put  himself  at  their  head,  and  the  heavy 
vehicle,  pushed  from  behind  or  by  the  wheels  by  some, 
while  eight  or  ten  pulled  it  by  the  shafts,  crossed  the 
narrow  causeway,  and  was  hoisted  rather  than  dragged  to 
the  summit  of  the  steep  embankment.  There  Jean  Oullier 
wedged  the  wheels  with  stones  to  prevent  it  from  running 
backward  by  its  own  weight  down  the  steep  rise  it  had 
gone  up  with  so  much  difficulty. 

"Now,"  he  said,  "put  yourselves  in  ambush  each  side  of 
the  marsh,  half  to  the  right,  half  to  the  left,  and  when  the 
time  comes,  —  that 's  to  say,  when  I  shout  'Fire  !  '  —  fire 
instantly.  If  the  soldiers  turn  to  pursue  you,  as  I  hope 
they  may,  retreat  toward  Grand-Lieu,  striving  to  lead 
them  on  as  best  you  can  away  from  Souday,  which  they 
are  aiming  for.     If,  on  the  contrary,  they  continue  their 


THE  SPRINGS  OF  BAUGÉ.  237 

way  we  will  all  wait  for  them  at  the  Ragot  crossways. 
There  we  must  stand  firm,  and  die  at  our  posts." 

The  Chouans  instantly  disappeared  into  their  hiding- 
places  on  either  side  the  marsh,  and  Jean  Oullier  was  left 
alone  with  Guérin.  Thereupon,  he  flung  himself  flat  on 
his  stomach  with  his  ear  to  the  ground  and  listened. 

"They  are  coming,"  he  said.  "They  are  following  the 
road  to  Souday  as  if  they  knew  it.  Who  the  devil  can  be 
guiding  them,  now  that  Pascal  Picaut  is  dead?  " 

"They  must  have  found  some  peasant  and  compelled 
him." 

"Then  that's  another  we  shall  have  to  get  rid  of.  If 
they  once  get  into  the  depths  of  the  forest  of  Machecoul 
without  a  guide,  not  one  of  them  will  ever  return  to 
Montaigu." 

"Ah,  ça,  Jean  Oullier!"  exclaimed  Guérin,  suddenly. 
"You  haven't  any  weapon!" 

"I  !  "  said  the  old  Vendéan,  laughing  between  his  teeth. 
"I  've  a  weapon  that  can  bring  down  more  men  than  your 
carbine;  and  in  ten  minutes,  if  everything  goes  as  I  hope 
it  will,  there  '11  be  plenty  of  guns  to  pick  up  beside  the 
marsh." 

So  saying,  Jean  Oullier  again  went  up  the  ascent,  which 
he  had  partly  descended  to  explain  to  the  men  his  plan  of 
battle,  and  reached  the  cart.  It  was  high  time.  As  he 
gained  the  summit  he  heard  on  the  opposite  hillside,  which 
led  down  to  the  marsh,  the  sound  of  stones  rolling  from 
the  feet  of  horses,  and  he  saw  two  or  three  flashes  of  light 
from  their  iron  shoes.  The  air  was  quivering,  as  it  does 
in  the  night-time,  with  the  approach  of  a  body  of  armed 
men. 

"Come,  go  down  and  join  the  rest,"  he  said  to  Guérin. 
"I  stay  here." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?  " 

"You  '11  see  presently." 

Guérin  obeyed.  Jean  Oullier  crept  under  the  cart  and 
waited.      Guérin  had  hardly  taken  his  place  among  his 


238  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

comrades  when  the  two  leading  chasseurs  of  the  advanced- 
guard  came  upon  the  edge  of  the  marsh.  Seeing  the  diffi- 
culties before  them,  they  stopped  and  hesitated. 

"Straight  on!"  cried  a  firm  voice,  although  it  had  a 
feminine  ring.     "  Straight  on  !  " 

The  two  chasseurs  advanced,  and  seeing  the  narrow 
causeway  built  on  piles  they  crossed  it  and  began  the 
ascent,  coming  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  cart,  and,  conse- 
quently, to  Jean  Oullier. 

When  they  were  twenty  steps  away  from  him,  Jean 
Oullier,  still  beneath  the  cart,  hung  himself  by  his  hands 
to  the  axletree,  and  resting  his  feet  on  the  front  bars  of 
the  wagon,  remained  quite  motionless.  The  chasseurs 
were  presently  beside  the  cart.  They  examined  it  care- 
fully from  their  saddles,  and  seeing,  of  coui-se,  nothing  of 
the  man  beneath  it  or  anything  else  to  excite  distrust,  they 
continued  their  way. 

The  main  column  was  by  this  time  at  the  edge  of  the 
marsh.  The  widow  Picaut  passed  first,  then  the  general, 
then  the  chasseurs.     The  marsh  was  crossed  in  that  order. 

But  just  as  they  reached  the  foot  of  the  slope  a  thunder- 
ing sound  was  heard  from  the  summit  of  the  rise  they  were 
about  to  ascend;  the  ground  shook  under  their  feet,  and 
a  sort  of  avalanche  came  tearing  down  the  hill  with  the 
rapidity  of  a  thunder-bolt. 

"  Stand  aside  !  "  cried  Dermoncourt,  in  a  voice  which 
rose  above  that  horrible  uproar. 

Seizing  the  widow  by  the  arm,  he  spurred  his  horse  into 
the  bushes.  The  general's  first  thought  was  for  his  guide, 
who  was,  for  the  moment,  the  most  precious  thing  he  had. 
The  guide  and  he  were  safe. 

But  the  soldiers  for  the  most  part  did  not  have  time  to 
obey  their  leader.  Paralyzed  by  the  strange  noise  they 
heard  and  not  knowing  what  enemy  to  look  for,  blinded  by 
the  darkness,  and  feeling  danger  everywhere  about  them, 
they  held  to  the  road,  where  the  cart  (for  of  course  it  was 
the  cart,  violently  impelled  by  Jean  Oullier  from  the  top 


THE   SPRINGS   OF   BAUGÉ.  239 

of  tlie  steep  embankment)  cut  its  way  through  them  like  a 
monstrous  cannon-ball,  killing  those  the  wheels  ran  over, 
and  wounding  others  with  its  logs  and  splinters. 

A  moment  of  stupefaction  followed  this  catastrophe,  but 
it  could  not  check  Dermoncourt. 

"Forward,  men!"  he  cried,  "and  let's  get  out  of  this 
cut-throat  place  !  " 

At  the  same  moment  a  voice,  not  less  powerful  than  his 
own,  called  out:  — 

"Fire,  my  gars  /  " 

A  flash  issued  from  every  bush  on  either  side  of  the 
marsh  and  a  rain  of  balls  came  pelting  down  among  the 
little  troop.  The  voice  that  ordered  the  volley  resounded 
from  its  front,  but  the  shots  came  from  its  rear.  The 
general,  an  old  war- wolf,  as  sly  and  wary  as  Jean  Oullier 
himself,  saw  through  the  manoeuvre. 

"Forward!"  he  cried;  "don't  lose  time  answering  them. 
Forward  !  forward  !  " 

The  column  continued  to  advance,  and  in  spite  of  the 
volleys  which  followed  it,  reached  the  top  of  the  hill. 

While  the  general  and  his  men  were  making  the  ascent 
Jean  Oullier,  hiding  among  the  underbrush,  went  rapidly 
down  the  hill  and  joined  his  companions. 

"Bravo  !  "  said  Guérin.  "Ah  !  if  we  had  only  ten  arms 
like  yours  and  a  few  such  wood-carts  as  that  we  could  get 
rid  of  this  cursed  army  in  a  very  short  time." 

"Hum  !  "  growled  Jean  Oullier,  "I  'm  not  as  satisfied  as 
you.  I  hoped  to  turn  them  back,  but  we  have  not  done  it. 
It  looks  to  me  as  if  they  were  keeping  on  their  way.  To 
the  crossroads,  now,  and  as  fast  as  our  legs  will  take  us  !  " 

"Who  says  the  red-breeches  are  keeping  on  their  way?  " 
asked  a  voice. 

Jean  Oullier  went  to  the  boggy  path  whence  the  voice 
had  come,  and  recognized  Joseph  Picaut.  The  Vendé'an, 
kneeling  on  the  ground,  with  his  gun  beside  him,  was  con- 
scientiously emptying  the  pockets  of  three  soldiers  whom 
Jean   Oullier 's  mighty  projectile   had   knocked  over  and 


240  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

crushed  to  death.  The  wolf-keeper  turned  away  with  an 
expression  of  disgust. 

" Listen  to  Joseph,"  said  Guérin,  in  a  low  voice  to  Jean 
Chillier.  "You  had  better  listen  to  him,  for  he  sees  by 
night  like  the  cats,  and  his  advice  is  not  to  be  despised." 

"Well,  I  say,"  said  Joseph  Picaut,  putting  his  plunder 
into  a  canvas  bag  he  always  carried  with  him,  —  "I  say 
that  since  the  Blues  reached  the  top  of  the  embankment 
they  haven't  budged.  You  haven't  any  ears,  you  fellows, 
or  you  would  hear  them  stamping  up  there  like  sheep  in  a 
fold.     If  you  don't  hear  them,  I  do." 

"Let  us  make  sure  of  that,"  said  Jean  Oullier  to  Guérin, 
thus  avoiding  a  reply  to  Joseph. 

"You  are  right,  Jean  Oullier,  and  I  '11  go  myself," 
replied  Guérin. 

The  Vendéan  crossed  the  marsh,  crept  through  the  reeds, 
and  went  half  way  up  the  ascent,  crawling  on  his  stomach 
like  a  snake  among  the  rocks,  and  gliding  so  gently  under 
the  bushes  that  they  scarcely  stirred  as  he  passed.  When 
he  was  only  about  thirty  paces  from  the  summit  he  stood 
up,  put  his  hat  on  the  end  of  a  long  stick,  and  waved  it 
above  his  head.  Instantly  a  shot  from  the  summit  sent  it 
spinning  a  hundred  feet  below  its  owner. 

"He  was  right,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  who  heard  the 
shot.  "But  what  is  hindering  them?  Is  their  guide 
killed?  " 

"Their  guide  is  not  killed,"  said  Joseph  Picaut,  in  a 
savage  voice. 

"Did  you  see  him?"  asked  another  voice,  for  Jean 
Oullier  seemed  determined  not  to  speak  to  Joseph  Picaut. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  Chouan. 

"Did  you  recognize  him?  " 

"Yes." 

"Then  it  must  be,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  as  if  speaking  to 
himself,  "that  they  wanted  to  get  away  from  the  marsh 
and  bivouac  behind  those  rocks,  where  they  are  safe  from 
our  guns.     No  doubt  they  will  stay  there  till  morning." 


THE   SPRINGS   OF   BAUGÉ.  2  !  I 

Presently  a  few  lights  were  seen  flickering  on  the  height. 

Little  by  little  they  increased  in  number  and  in  size,  until 
four  or  five  camp  fires  lit  up  with  a  ruddy  glow  the  sparse 
vegetation  which  grew  among  the  rocks. 

"This  is  very  strange  if  their  guide  is  still  with  them," 
said  Jean  Oullier.  "However,  as  they  are  certain  to  go 
by  the  Ragot  crossways  in  any  case,  take  your  men  there, 
Guérin,"  he  said  to  the  Chouan,  who  by  this  time  had 
returned  to  his  side. 

"  Very  good,  "  said  the  latter. 

"If  they  continue  their  way,  you  know  what  you  have 
to  do;  if,  on  the  contrary,  they  have  really  bivouacked  up 
there,  you  can  let  them  take  their  ease  beside  their  fires. 
It  is  useless  to  attack  them.'" 

"Why  so?"  asked  Joseph  Picaut. 

Thus  directly  questioned  as  to  his  own  order,  Jean 
Oullier  was  forced  to  reply. 

"Because,"  he  said,  "it  is  a  crime  to  uselessly  expose 
the  lives  of  brave  men." 

"  Say  rather  —  " 

''What?  "  demanded  the  old  keeper,  violently. 

'Say  'Because  my  masters,  the  nobles  whose  servant  I 
am,  no  longer  want  the  lives  of  those  brave  men.'  Say 
that,  and  you  '11  tell  the  truth,  Jean  Oullier." 

"Who  dares  to  say  that  Jean  Oullier  lies?"  asked  the 
wolf-keeper,  frowning. 

"  I  !  "  said  Joseph  Picaut. 

Jean  Oullier  set  his  teeth,  but  contained  himself.  He 
seemed  resolved  to  have  neither  friendship  nor  quarrel 
with  the  man. 

"I  !  "  repeated  Picaut,  —  "I  say  that  it  is  not  out  of  love 
for  our  bodies  that  you  want  to  prevent  us  from  profiting  by 
our  victory,  but  because  all  you  have  made  us  fight  for  is  to 
keep  the  red-breeches  from  pillaging  the  castle  of  Souday." 

"Joseph  Picaut,"  replied  Jean  Oullier,  calmly,  "though 
we  both  wear  the  white  cockade  we  do  not  follow  the  same 
paths  nor  work  for  the  same  ends.     I  have  always  thought 

VOL.   I.  —  16 


242  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

that  no  matter  how  their  opinions  may  differ,  brothers 
are  brothers,  and  it  grieves  me  to  see  the  blood  of  my 
brethren  uselessly  shed.  As  for  my  relation  to  my  masters 
I  have  always  regarded  humility  as  the  first  duty  of  a 
Christian,  above  all  when  that  Christian  is  a  poor  peasant, 
as  I  am,  and  as  you  are.  Also  I  consider  obedience  the 
most  imperative  duty  of  a  soldier.  I  know  that  you  don't 
think  as  I  do,  —  so  much  the  worse  for  you  !  Under  other 
circumstances  I  might  have  made  you  repent  for  what  you 
have  just  said;  but  at  this  moment  I  do  not  belong  to 
myself.     You  may  thank  God  for  that." 

"Well,"  said  Joseph  Picaut,  sneering,  "when  you  return 
into  possession  of  yourself  you  '11  know  where  to  find  me, 
Jean  Oullier;  you  won't  have  far  to  look."  Then,  turning 
to  the  little  troop  of  men,  he  went  on:  "Now,  if  there  are 
any  among  you  who  think  it  is  folly  to  course  the  hare 
when  you  can  take  it  in  its  form,  follow  me." 

He  started  as  if  to  go.  No  one  stirred;  no  one  even 
answered  him.  Joseph  Picaut,  seeing  that  total  silence 
followed  his  proposal,  made  an  angry  gesture  and  disap- 
peared  into  the  thicket. 

Jean  Oullier,  taking  Picaut's  words  for  mere  boastful - 
ness,  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"Come,  you  fellows,"  he  said  to  the  Chouans,  "be  off  to 
the  Eagot  crossways,  and  quickly,  too.  Follow  the  bed  of 
the  brook  to  the  clearing  at  Quatre-Veuts  ;  from  there  it 
will  take  you  fifteen  minutes  to  get  to  the  crossways." 

"Where  are  you  going,  Jean  Oullier?  "  said  Guérin. 

"To  Souday,"  said  the  wolf-keeper.  "I  must  make  sure 
that  Michel  did  his  errand." 

The  little  band  departed  obediently,  following,  as  Jean 
Oullier  told  them,  the  course  of  the  rivulet.  The  old 
keeper  was  left  alone.  He  listened  for  a  few  moments  to 
the  sound  of  the  water  which  the  Chouans  splashed  as  they 
marched;  but  that  noise  soon  mingled  with  the  rippling 
and  dash  of  the  little  rapids,  and  Jean  Oullier  turned  bis 
head  in  the  direction  of  the  soldiers. 


THF,   SPRINGS   OF   BAT7GÊ  243 

The  rocks  on  which  the  column  had  halted  formed  a 
chain,  running  from  east  to  west  in  the  direction  of  Sunday. 
On  the  east  this  chain  ended  in  a  gentle  slope,  which  came, 
down  to  the  rivulet  up  which  the  Chouans  had  just  passed 
in  order  to  turn  the  encampment  of  the  troops.  On  the 
west  it  stretched  for  a  mile  and  a  half  or  more,  and  the 
nearer  it  came  to  Souday  the  higher  and  more  jagged  grew 
the  rocks,  the  steeper  and  more  denuded  of  vegetation  were 
the  slopes.  On  this  side  the  miniature  mountain  ended  in 
an  actual  precipice  formed  by  enormous  perpendicular  rocks, 
which  overhung  the  rivulet  that  washed  their  base.  Once 
or  twice  in  his  life  Jean  Oullier  had  risked  the  descent  of 
this  precipice  to  gain  upon  a  boar  his  dogs  were  pursuing. 
It  was  done  by  a  path  scarcely  a  foot  wide,  hidden  among 
the  gorse  and  called  the  Viette  des  Biques,  meaning  "the 
goat-path."  The  way  was  known  to  a  few  hunters  only. 
Jean  Oullier  himself  had  been  exposed  to  such  danger  in 
descending  it  that  he  considered  it  impossible  that  the 
troops  should  attempt  it  in  the  darkness. 

If  the  enemy's  column  intended  to  continue  its  aggres- 
sive movement  on  Souday  it  must  either  take  this  goat- 
path,  or  meet  the  Chouans  at  the  Ragot  crossways,  or 
return  upon  its  steps  and  follow  the  brook  up  which  the 
Chouans  had  just  gone.  All  this  seemed  to  throw  the 
enemy  into  his  hands,  and  yet  Jean  Oullier,  by  a  sort  of 
presentiment,  was  uneasy. 

It  seemed  to  him  extraordinary  that  Dermoncourt  had 
yielded  to  the  first  attack  and  resigned  so  quickly  and 
readily  his  evident  intention  of  advancing  to  Souday. 
Instead  of  continuing  his  own  way  to  Souday,  as  he  had 
told  Guérin  he  should,  he  remained  where  he  was,  watching 
the  heights,  when  suddenly  he  observed  that  the  fires  were 
going  down  and  the  light  they  threw  upon  the  rocks  was 
growing  fainter  and  fainter. 

Jean  Oullier's  decision  was  made  in  a  moment.  He 
darted  along  the  same  path  Guérin  had  taken  to  observe 
the  enemy,  and  used  the  same  tactics;  only,  he  did  not  stop, 


244  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

as  Guérin  had  stopped,  half-way  up  the  ascent.  He  con- 
tinued to  crawl  up  until  he  was  at  the  foot  of  the  blocks  of 
stone  which  surrounded  the  flat  summit. 

There  he  listened;  he  heard  no  noise.  Then,  rising 
cautiously  to  his  feet  in  a  space  between  two  large  rocks, 
he  looked  before  him  and  saw  nothing.  The  place  was 
solitary.  The  fires  were  deserted;  the  furze  with  which 
they  were  built  was  crackling  and  going  out.  Jean  Oullier 
climbed  the  rocks  and  dropped  into  the  space  where  he  had 
supposed  the  soldiers  were.     Not  a  man  was  there. 

He  gave  a  terrible  cry  of  rage  and  disappointment,  and 
shouted  to  his  companions  below  to  return  and  follow  him. 
Then,  with  the  swiftness  of  a  hunted  deer,  straining  his 
iron  muscles  to  the  utmost,  he  rushed  along  the  summit  of 
the  rocks  in  the  direction  of  Souday.  No  doubt  remained 
in  his  mind.  Some  unknown  guide,  unknown  except  to 
Joseph  Picaut,  had  led  the  soldiers  to  the  Viette  des 
Biques. 

Notwithstanding  the  difficulties  of  the  way,  Jean  Oullier, 
slipping  on  the  flat  rocks  covered  with  mosses,  striking 
against  the  granite  blocks  which  rose  in  his  path  like  sen- 
tinels, catching  his  feet  in  the  briers  which  tore  his  flesh 
as  he  rushed  through  them,  —  Jean  Oullier,  we  say,  was 
not  ten  minutes  in  getting  over  the  whole  length  of  the 
little  chain.  When  he  reached  its  extremity  he  climbed 
the  last  line  of  rocks  which  overlooked  the  valley,  and  saw 
the  soldiers. 

They  were  just  descending  the  slope  of  the  hill,  having 
risked  the  path  of  the  Viette  des  Biques.  The  line  of 
their  torches  could  be  seen  filing  cautiously  along  by  the 
edge  of  the  abyss.  Jean  Oullier  clung  to  the  enormous 
stone  on  which  he  stood  and  shook  it,  hoping  to  detach  it 
and  send  it  rolling  on  their  heads.  But  all  such  efforts 
of  mad  anger  were  powerless,  and  only  a  mocking  laugh 
replied  to  his  imprecations.  He  turned  round  and  looked 
behind  him,  thinking  that  Satan  himself  could  alone  laugh 
thus.     The  laugher  was  Joseph  Picaut. 


TUE   SPRINGS   OF   BAUGÉ.  245 

"Well,  Jean  Oullier,"  lie  said,  coming  out  of  a  clump 
of  gorse,  "my  scent  was  better  than  yours;  you  ought  to 
have  followed  me.  As  it  was,  you  made  me  lose  my  time. 
I  got  here  too  late;  and  your  friends  will  be  cooked  in 
spite  of  me." 

"  My  God  !  my  God  !  "  cried  Jean  Oullier,  grasping  his 
hair  with  both  hands.  "Who  could  have  guided  them 
down  that  path?" 

"Whoever  did  guide  them  down  shall  never  come  up 
again,  either  by  this  path  or  any  other,"  said  Joseph 
Picaut.  "Look  at  that  guide  now,  Jean  Oullier,  if  you 
want  to  see  her  living." 

Jean  Oullier  leaned  forward  once  more.  The  soldiers 
had  crossed  the  rivulet  and  were  gathered  round  the  gen- 
eral. In  the  midst  of  them,  not  a  hundred  paces  from  the 
two  men,  though  separated  from  them  by  the  precipice, 
they  saw  a  woman  with  dishevelled  hair,  who  was  pointing 
out  to  the  general  with  her  finger  the  path  he  must  now 
take. 

"  Marianne  Picaut  !  "  exclaimed  Jean  Oullier. 

The  Chouan  made  no  answer,  but  he  raised  his  gun  to 
his  shoulder  and  slowly  aimed  it.  Jean  Oullier  turned 
round  when  he  heard  the  click  of  the  trigger,  and  as  the 
Chouan  fired  he  threw  up  the  muzzle  of  the  gun. 

"  Wretch  !  "  he  cried  ;  "  give  her  time  to  bury  your 
brother  !  " 

The  ball  was  fired  into  space. 

"Damn  you!"  cried  Joseph  Picaut,  furiously,  seizing 
his  gun  by  the  barrel,  and  giving  a  terrible  blow  with  the 
stock  on  Jean  Oullier's  head.  "I  treat  Whites  like  you 
as  I  would  Blues  !  " 

In  spite  of  his  Herculean  strength  the  blow  was  so  vio- 
lent that  it  brought  the  old  Vendéan  to  his  knees;  then, 
not  able  to  maintain  himself  in  that  position,  he  rolled 
over  the  edge  of  the  precipice.  As  he  fell  he  caught 
instinctively  at  a  tuft  of  gorze;  but  he  soon  felt  it  yield- 
ing under  the  weight  of  his  body. 


246  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

Bewildered  as  he  was,  he  did  not  altogether  lose  con- 
sciousness, and,  expecting  every  moment  to  feel  the  slender 
shoots  which  alone  supported  him  above  the  abyss  give 
way,  he  commended  his  soul  to  God.  At  that  instant  he 
heard  shots  from  the  gorse  and  saw  through  his  half -closed 
eyelids  the  flash  of  arms.  Hoping  that  the  Chouans  had 
returned,  led  by  Guérin,  he  tried  to  call  out,  but  his  voice 
felt  imprisoned  in  his  chest,  and  he  could  not  raise  the 
leaden  hand  which  seemed  to  hold  the  breath  from  his  lips. 
He  was  like  a  man  in  a  frightful  nightmare  ;  and  the  pain 
the  effort  cost  him  was  so  violent  that  he  fancied — for- 
getting the  blow  he  had  received  —  that  his  forehead  was 
sweating  blood. 

Little  by  little  his  strength  abandoned  him.  His  fingers 
weakened,  his  muscles  relaxed,  and  the  agony  he  endured 
became  so  terrible  that  he  believed  he  must  voluntarily  let 
go  the  branches  which  alone  held  him  above  the  void. 
Soon  he  felt  himself  attracted  to  the  abyss  below  him  by 
an  irresistible  impulse.  His  fingers  loosened  their  last 
hold;  but  at  the  very  moment  when  he  imagined  he  should 
hear  the  air  whistling  and  whirling  as  he  fell  through  it, 
and  feel  the  jagged  points  of  rocks  tearing  his  body  as  he 
passed,  a  pair  of  vigorous  arms  caught  him  and  bore  him 
to  a  narrow  platform  which  overhung  the  precipice  at  a 
little  distance. 

He  was  saved  !  But  he  knew  at  once  that  the  arms  that 
were  brutally  handling  him  were  not  those  of  friends. 


THE   GUESTS    AT   SOUDAY.  247 


XXVII. 


THE   GUESTS    AT    SOUDAY. 


The  day  after  the  arrival  of  the  Comte  de  Bonneville  and 
his  companion  at  the  château  de  Souday,  the  marquis 
returned  from  his  expedition,  or  rather,  his  conference. 
As  he  got  off  his  horse  it  was  quite  evident  that  the  worthy 
gentleman  was  in  a  savage  ill-humor. 

He  growled  at  his  daughters,  who  had  not  come  even  so 
far  as  the  door  to  meet  him  ;  he  swore  at  Jean  Chillier,  who 
had  taken  the  liberty  to  go  off  to  the  fair  at  Montaigu 
without  his  permission;  he  quarrelled  with  the  cook,  who, 
in  the  absence  of  the  major-domo,  came  forward  to  hold 
his  stirrup,,  and  instead  of  grasping  the  one  to  the  right, 
pulled  with  all  her  strength  on  the  one  to  the  left,  thus 
obliging  the  marquis  to  get  off  on  the  wrong  side  of  his 
horse  and  away  from  the  portico. 

"When  he  reached  the  salon  M.  de  Souday's  wrath  was 
still  exhaling  itself  in  monosyllables  of  such  vehemence 
that  Bertha  and  Mary,  accustomed  as  their  ears  were  to 
the  freedom  of  language  the  old  emigre  allowed  himself, 
did  not,  on  this  occasion,  know  which  way  to  look. 

In  vain  they  attempted  to  coax  him  and  smooth  his 
angry  brow.  Nothing  did  any  good;  and  the  marquis,  as 
he  warmed  his  feet  before  the  fire  and  switched  his  top- 
boots  with  his  riding-whip,  seemed  to  regret  bitterly  that 
Messieurs  Blank  and  Blank  were  not  the  top-boots  them- 
selves, to  whom  he  addressed,  as  he  flourished  his  whip, 
some  very  offensive  epithets  indeed. 

The  fact  is,  the  marquis  was  furious.  For  some  time 
past  he  had  been  sadly  conscious  that  the  pleasures  of  the 


248  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

chase  were  beginning  to  pall  upon  him;  also  he  had  found 
himself  yawning  over  the  whist  which  regularly  concluded 
his  evenings.  The  joys  of  trumps  and  odd  tricks  were 
beginning  to  be  insipid,  and  life  at  Souday  threatened  to 
become  distasteful  to  him.  Besides,  for  the  last  ten  years 
his  legs  had  never  felt  as  elastic  as  they  did  now.  Never 
had  his  lungs  breathed  freer,  or  his  brain  been  so  active 
and  enterprising.  He  was  just  entering  that  Saint-Martin's 
summer  for  old  men,  —  the  period  when  their  faculties 
sparkle  with  a  brighter  gleam  before  paling,  and  their 
bodies  gather  strength  as  if  to  prepare  for  the  final  strug- 
gle. The  marquis,  feeling  himself  more  lively,  more  fit 
than  he  had  been  for  many  a  year,  growing  restless  in  the 
little  circle  of  his  daily  avocations,  now  insufficient  to 
occupy  him,  and  conscious,  alas  !  that  ennui  was  creep- 
ing over  him,  took  it  into  his  head  that  a  new  Vendée 
would  be  admirably  suited  to  his  renewed  youth,  and  did 
not  doubt  that  he  should  find  in  the  adventurous  life  of  a 
partisan  those  earlier  enjoyments  the  very  memory  of 
which  was  the  charm  of  his  old  age. 

He  had  therefore  hailed  with  enthusiasm  the  prospect 
of  a  new  uprising  and  call  to  arms.  A  political  commo- 
tion of  that  kind,  coming  as  it  did,  proved  to  him  once 
more  what  he  had  often  in  his  placid  and  naïve  egotism 
believed,  —  that  the  world  was  created  and  managed  for 
the  satisfaction  and  benefit  of  so  worthy  a  gentleman  as 
M.  le  Marquis  de  Souday. 

But  he  had  found  among  his  co-royalists  a  lukewarm- 
ness  and  a  disposition  to  procrastinate  which  fairly  exas- 
perated him.  Some  declared  that  the  public  mind  was  not 
yet  ripe  for  any  movement;  others  that  it  was  imprudent 
to  attempt  anything  unless  assured  that  the  army  would 
side  with  legitimacy;  others,  again,  insisted  that  relig- 
ious and  political  enthusiasm  was  dying  out  among  the 
peasantry,  and  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  rouse  them  to 
a  new  war.  The  heroic  marquis,  who  could  not  compre- 
hend why  all  France  should  not  be  ready  when  a  small 


THE    GUESTS    AT    SOUDAY.  24!) 

campaign  would  be  so  very  agreeable  to  him, — when  Jean 
Oullier  had  burnished  up  his  best  carbine,  and  his  daugh- 
ters had  embroidered  for  him  a  scarf  and  a  bloody  heart, 
—  the  marquis,  we  say,  had  just  quarrelled  vehemently 
with  his  friends  the  Vendéan  leaders,  and  leaving  the 
meeting  abruptly,  had  returned  to  the  château  without 
listening  to  reason. 

Mary,  who  knew  to  what  excess  her  father  respected  the 
duty  of  hospitality,  profited  by  a  lull  in  his  ill  humor  to 
tell  him  gently  of  the  arrival  of  the  Comte  de  Bonneville 
at  the  château,  hoping  in  this  way  to  create  a  diversion 
for  his  mind. 

"Bonneville!  Bonneville!  And  who  may  that  be?" 
growled  the  irascible  old  fellow.  "Bonneville?  Some 
cabbage-planter  or  lawyer  or  civilian  who  has  jumped  into 
epaulets,  some  talker  who  can't  fire  anything  but  words, 
a  dilettante  who  '11  tell  me  we  ought  to  wait  and  let 
Philippe  waste  his  popularity!  Popularity,  indeed!  As 
if  the  thing  to  do  were  not  to  turn  that  popularity  on  our 
own  king  !  " 

"I  see  that  Monsieur  le  marquis  is  for  taking  arms 
immediately,"  said  a  soft  and  flute-like  voice  beside  him. 

The  marquis  turned  round  hastily  and  beheld  a  very 
young  man,  dressed  as  a  peasant,  who  was  leaning,  like 
himself,  against  the  chimney-piece,  and  warming  his  feet 
before  the  fire.  The  stranger  had  entered  the  room  by  a 
side  door,  and  the  marquis,  whose  back  was  toward  him 
as  he  entered,  being  carried  away  by  the  heat  of  his  wrath 
and  his  imprecations,  paid  no  heed  to  the  signs  his  daugh- 
ters made  to  warn  him  of  the  presence  of  a  gue  fc. 

Petit-Pierre,  for  it  was  he,  seemed  to  be  about  sixteen 
or  eighteen  years  old;  but  he  was  very  slender  and  frail 
for  his  years.  His  face  was  pale,  and  the  long  black  hair 
which  framed  it  made  it  seem  whiter  still;  his  large  blue 
eyes  beamed  with  courage  and  intellect;  his  mouth,  which 
was  delicate  and  curled  slightly  upward  at  the  corners, 
was  now  smiling  with  a  mischievous  expression;  the  chin, 


250  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

strongly  defined  and  prominent,  indicated  unusual  strength 
of  will;  while  a  slightly  aquiline  nose  completed  a  cast  of 
countenance,  the  distinction  of  which  contrasted  strangely 
with  the  clothes  he  wore. 

"Monsieur  Petit-Pierre,"  said  Bertha,  taking  the  hand 
of  the  new-comer,  and  presenting  him  to  her  father. 

The  marquis  made  a  profound  bow,  to  which  the  young 
man  replied  with  a  graceful  salutation.  The  old  émigré 
was  not  very  much  deceived  by  the  dress  and  name  of 
Petit-Pierre.  The  great  war  had  long  accustomed  him  to 
the  use  of  nicknames  and  aliases  by  which  men  of  high 
birth  concealed  their  rank,  and  the  disguises  under  which 
they  hid  their  natural  bearing;  but  what  did  puzzle  him 
was  the  extreme  youth  of  his  unexpected  guest. 

"I  am  happy,  monsieur,"  he  said,  "if  my  daughters  have 
been  able  to  be  of  service  to  you  and  Monsieur  de  Bonne- 
ville; but  all  the  same  I  regret  that  I  was  absent  from 
home  at  the  time  of  your  arrival.  If  it  were  not  for  an 
extremely  unpleasant  interview  with  some  gentlemen  of  my 
political  opinions,  I  should  have  had  the  honor  to  put 
my  poor  castle  at  your  service  myself.  However,  I  hope 
my  little  chatterers  have  been  good  substitutes,  and  that 
nothing  our  limited  means  can  procure  has  been  spared  to 
make  your  stay  as  comfortable  as  it  can  be." 

"Your  hospitality,  Monsieur  le  marquis,  can  only  gain 
in  the  hands  of  such  charming  substitutes,"  said  Petit- 
Pierre,   gallantly. 

"  Humph  !  "  said  the  marquis,  pushing  out  his  lower  lip  ; 
"  in  other  times  than  these  we  are  in,  my  daughters  ought 
to  be  able  to  procure  for  their  guests  some  amusement. 
Bertha,  here,  knows  how  to  follow  a  trail,  and  can  turn  a 
boar  as  well  as  any  one.  Mary,  on  the  other  hand,  has  n't 
her  equal  for  knowing  the  corner  of  the  marsh  where  the 
snipe  are.  But  except  for  a  sound  knowledge  of  whist, 
which  they  get  from  me,  I  regard  them  as  altogether  unfit 
to  do  the  honors  of  a  salon;  and  here  we  are,  for  the  pres- 
ent, shut  up  with  nothing  to  do  but  poke  the  fire."     So 


THE    GUESTS    AT    SOUDAY.  251 

saying,  Monsieur  de  Souday  gave  a  vigorous  kick  to  the 
logs  on  the  hearth,  proving  that  his  anger  was  not  yet 
over. 

"I  think  few  women  at  court  possess  more  grace  and 
distinction  than  these  young  ladies;  and  I  assure  you  that 
none  unite  with  those  qualities  such  nobility  of  heart  and 
feeling  as  your  daughters,  Monsieur  le  marquis,  have 
shown  to  us." 

"Court?  "  said  the  marquis,  interrogatively,  looking 
with  some  surprise  at  Petit-Pierre. 

Petit-Pierre  colored  and  smiled  deprecatingly,  like  an 
actor  who  blunders  before  a  friendly  audience. 

"I  spoke,  of  course,  on  presumption,  Monsieur  le  mar- 
quis," he  said,  with  an  embarrassment  that  was  obviously 
factitious.  "I  said  the  court,  because  that  is  the  sphere 
where  your  daughters'  name  would  naturally  place  them, 
and  also,  because  it  is  there  I  should  like. to  see  them." 

The  marquis  colored  because  he  had  made  his  guest 
color.  He  had  just  involuntarily  meddled  with  the  incog- 
nito the  latter  seemed  anxious  to  preserve,  and  the  exquis- 
ite politeness  of  the  old  gentleman  reproached  him  bitterly 
for  such  a  fault. 

Petit-Pierre  hastened  to  add:  — 

"I  was  saying  to  you,  Monsieur  le  marquis,  when  these 
young  ladies  did  me  the  honor  to  introduce  us,  that  you 
seem  to  be  one  of  those  who  desire  an  immediate  call  to 
arms." 

"I  should  think  so!  parbleu!  and  I  am  willing  to  say 
so  to  you,  monsieur,  who,  as  I  see,  are  one  of  us  —  " 

Petit-Pierre  nodded  in  affirmation. 

"Yes,  that  is  my  desire,"  continued  the  marquis;  "but 
no  matter  what  I  say  and  do,  I  can't  get  any  one  to  believe 
an  old  man  who  scorched  his  skin  in  the  terrible  fire  which 
laid  waste  the  country  from  179.3  to  1797.  ISTo  !  they  listen 
to  a  pack  of  gabblers,  lawyers  without  a  brief,  fine  dandies 
who  dare  not  sleep  in  the  open  air  for  fear  of  spoiling 
their  clothes,    milk-sops,    fellows,"   added  the    marquis, 


252  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

kicking  at  the  logs,  which  revenged  themselves  by  shower- 
ing his  boots  with  sparks,  —  "fellows  who  —  " 

"  Papa  !  "  said  Mary,  gently,  observing  a  furtive  smile 
on  Petit-Pierre's  face.     "  Papa,  do  be  calm  !  " 

"No,  I  shall  not  be  calm,"  continued  the  fiery  old  gen- 
tleman. "Everything  was  ready.  Jean  Oullier  assured 
me  that  my  division  was  boiling  over  with  enthusiasm; 
and  now  the  affair  is  adjourned  over  from  the  14th  of  May 
to  the  Greek  Calends  !  " 

"Patience,  Monsieur  le  marquis,"  said  Petit-Pierre, 
"the  time  will  soon  be  here." 

"Patience!  patience!  that's  easy  for  you  to  say," 
replied  the  marquis,  sighing.  "You  are  young,  and  you 
have  time  enough  to  wait  ;  but  I  —  Who  knows  if  God 
will  grant  me  days  enough  to  unfurl  the  good  old  flag  I 
fought  under  so  gayly  once  upon  a  time?" 

Petit-Pierre  was  touched  by  the  old  man's  regret. 

"But  have  you  not  heard,  Monsieur  le  marquis,  for  I 
have,  "  he  said,  "  that  the  call  to  arms  was  only  postponed 
because  of  the  uncertainty  that  exists  as  to  the  arrival  of 
the  princess?" 

This  speech  seemed  to  increase  the  marquis's  ill-humor. 

"Let  me  alone,  young  man,"  he  said,  in  an  angry  tone. 
"Don't  I  know  the  meaning  of  that  old  joke?  During  the 
five  years  that  I  fought  to  the  death  in  La  Vendée  were 
not  they  always  telling  us  that  a  royal  personage  would 
draw  his  sword  and  rally  all  ambitions  round  him? 
Did  n't  I  myself,  with  many  others,  wait  for  the  Comte 
d'Artois  to  land  on  the  shores  of  the  île  Dieu  on  the  2d  of 
October?  We  shall  no  more  see  the  Duchesse  de  Berry  in 
1832  than  we  saw  the  Comte  d'Artois  in  1796.  That, 
however,  will  not  prevent  me  from  getting  myself  killed 
on  their  behalf,  as  becomes  a  loyal  gentleman." 

"Monsieur  le  Marquis  de  Souday,"  said  Petit-Pierre, 
in  a  voice  of  strange  emotion,  "I  swear  to  you,  myself, 
that  if  the  Duchesse  de  Berry  had  nothing  more  than  a 
nutshell  at  her  command  she  would  cross  the  seas  and 


THE    GUESTS    AT   SOUDAY.  253 

place  herself  under  Charette's  banner,  borne  by  a  hand  so 
valiant  and  so  noble.  I  swear  to  you  that  she  will  come 
now,  if  not  to  conquer,  at  least  to  die  with  those  who  have 
risen  to  defend  the  rights  of  her  son." 

There  was  such  energy  and  determination  in  the  tone 
with  which  he  spoke,  and  it  seemed  so  extraordinary  that 
such  words  should  issue  from  the  lips  of  a  little  lad  of  six- 
teen, that  the  marquis  looked  him  in  the  face  with  extreme 
surprise. 

"  Who  are  you?  "  he  said,  giving  way  to  his  astonish- 
ment. "By  what  right  do  you  speak  thus  of  the  intentions 
of  her  Eoyal  Highness,  and  pledge  your  word  for  her, 
young  man  —  or  rather,  child?  " 

"  I  think,  Monsieur  le  marquis,  that  Mademoiselle  de 
Souday  did  me  the  honor  to  mention  my  name  when  she 
presented  me  to  you." 

"True,  Monsieur  Petit-Pierre,"  replied  the  marquis, 
confused  at  his  outburst.  "I  beg  your  pardon.  But,"  he 
added  conjecturing  the  youth  to  be  the  son  of  some  great 
personage,  "  is  it  indiscreet  to  ask  your  opinion  as  to  the 
present  likelihood  of  a  call  to  arms?  Young  as  you  are, 
you  speak  with  such  excellent  sense  that  I  do  not  conceal 
from  you  my  desire  for  your  opinion." 

"  My  opinion,  Monsieur  le  marquis,  can  be  all  the  more 
readily  given  because  I  see  plainly  that  it  is  much  the 
same  as  yours." 

"Really?" 

"  My  opinion  —  if  I  may  permit  myself  to  give  one  —  " 

"  Heavens  !  after  the  pitiful  creatures  I  heard  talk  to- 
night you  seem  to  me  as  wise  as  the  seven  sages  of 
Greece." 

"You  are  too  kind.  It  is  my  opinion,  Monsieur  le 
marquis,  that  it  was  most  unfortunate  we  could  not 
rise,  as  agreed  upon,  on  the  night  of  the  13th  and  14th 
of  May." 

"  That 's  just  what  I  told  them.  May  I  ask  your  reasons, 
monsieur?  " 


254  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  My  reasons  are  these  :  The  soldiers  were  at  that  time 
quartered  in  the  villages,  among  the  inhabitants,  scattered 
here  and  there,  without  object  and  without  a  flag.  Noth- 
ing was  easier  than  to  surprise  and  disarm  them  in  a 
sudden  attack." 

"  Most  true  ;  whereas  now  —  " 

"Now  the  order  has  been  given  to  break  up  the  small 
encampments  and  draw  into  a  focus  all  the  scattered  mili- 
tary forces  and  bodies,  —  not  of  mere  companies  and 
detachments,  but  of  battalions  and  regiments.  We  shall 
now  need  a  pitched  battle  to  reach  the  results  we  might 
have  gained  by  the  cost  of  that  one  night's  sleep." 

"That's  conclusive!"  cried  the  marquis,  enthusiasti- 
cally, "and  I  am  dreadfully  distressed  that  out  of  the  forty 
and  one  reasons  I  gave  my  opponents  to-night  I  never 
thought  of  that.  But,  "  he  continued,  "  that  order  which 
you  say  has  been  sent  to  the  troops,  are  you  quite  sure  it 
has  been  actually  issued?  " 

"Quite  sure,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  with  the  most  modest 
and  deferential  look  he  could  put  upon  his  face. 

The  marquis  looked  at  him  in  stupefaction. 

"  It  is  a  pity,  "  he  went  on,  "  a  great  pity  !  However,  as 
you  say,  my  young  friend, — you  will  permit  me  to  give 
you  that  title,  —  it  is  better  to  have  patience  and  wait  till 
our  new  Maria  Theresa  comes  into  the  midst  of  her  new 
Hungarians,  and  meantime  to  drink  to  the  health  of  her 
royal  son  and  his  spotless  banner.  That  reminds  me 
that  these  young  ladies  must  deign  to  get  our  breakfast 
ready,  for  Jean  Oullier  has  gone  off,  as  some  one,"  he 
added,  with  a  half -angry  look  at  his  daughters,  "has  taken 
upon  herself  to  allow  him  to  go  to  Montaigu  without  my 
orders." 

"That  some  one  was  I,  Monsieur  le  marquis,"  said 
Petit-Pierre,  whose  courteous  tone  was  not  quite  free  from 
command.  "  I  beg  your  pardon  for  having  thus  employed 
one  of  your  men;  but  you  were  absent,  and  it  was  most 
urgent  that  we  should  judge  exactly  what  we  had  to  expect 


THE    GUESTS    AT   SOUDAY.  255 

from  the  temper  of  the  peasantry  assembled  at  Montaigu 
for  the  fair." 

There  was  a  tone  of  such  easy  and  natural  assurance  in 
that  soft,  sweet  voice,  such  a  consciousness  of  authority  in 
the  person  who  spoke,  that  the  marquis  was  speechless. 
He  ran  over  in  his  mind  the  various  great  personages  he 
could  think  of  who  might  have  a  son  of  this  age,  and  all 
he  managed  to  say  in  reply  were  a  few  stammered  words 
of  acquiescence. 

The  Comte  de  Bonneville  entered  the  room  at  this 
moment.  Petit-Pierre,  as  the  older  acquaintance  of  the 
two,  presented  him  to  the  marquis. 

The  open  countenance  and  frank,  joyous  manner  of  the 
count  immediately  won  upon  the  old  gentleman,  already 
delighted  with  Petit-Pierre.  He  dismissed  his  ill-humor, 
and  vowed  not  to  think  any  more  of  the  cold  hearts  and 
backwardness  of  his  late  companions;  and  he  inwardly 
resolved,  as  he  led  his  guests  to  the  dining-room,  to  use 
all  his  wit  to  extract  from  the  Comte  de  Bonneville  the 
real  name  of  the  youth  who  now  chose  to  pass  under  the 
incognito  of  Petit-Pierre. 


256  THE   LAST   VENDER. 


XXVIII. 

IN    WHICH    THE    MARQUIS     DE     SOUDAY     BITTERL5T     REGRETS 
THAT   PETIT-PIERRE    IS    NOT    A    GENTLEMAN. 

The  two  young  men,  whom  the  Marquis  de  Souday  pushed 
before  him,  stopped  on  the  threshold  of  the  dining-room 
door.     The  aspect  of  the  table  was  literally  formidable. 

In  the  centre  rose,  like  an  ancient  citadel  commanding 
a  town,  an  enormous  pasty  of  boar's  meat  and  venison.  A 
pike  weighing  fifteeD  pounds,  three  or  four  chickens  in  a 
stew,  and  a  regular  tower  of  Babel  in  cutlets  flanked  this 
citadel  to  the  north,  south,  east,  and  west;  and  for  out- 
posts or  picket-guards  M.  de  Souday's  cook  had  surrounded 
these  heavy  works  with  a  cordon  of  dishes,  all  touching 
one  another,  and  containing  aliments  of  many  kinds,  — 
hors-d'œuvres,  entrées,  entremets,  vegetables,  salads,  fruits, 
and  marmalades,  —  all  huddled  together  and  heaped  in  a 
confusion  that  was  certainly  not  picturesque,  though  full 
of  charm  for  appetites  sharpened  by  the  cutting  air  of  the 
forests  of  the  Mauge  region. 

"  Heavens  !  "  cried  Petit-Pierre,  drawing  back,  as  we 
have  said,  at  the  sight  of  such  victualling.  "You  treat 
poor  peasants  too  royally,  Monsieur  de  Souday." 

"  Oh,  as  for  that,  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  it,  my  young 
friend,  and  you  must  neither  blame  me  nor  thank  me.  I 
leave  all  that  to  these  young  ladies.  But  it  is,  I  hope, 
unnecessary  to  say  how  happy  I  am  that  you  honor  the 
board  of  a  poor  country  gentleman." 

So  saying,  the  marquis  gently  impelled  Petit-Pierre,  who 
still  seemed  to  hesitate,  to  approach  the  table.  He  yielded 
to  the  pressure  with  some  reserve. 


THE    MARQUIS    DE    SOUDAY'S    KEGRE I  S.  257 

"  I  know  I  cannot  worthily  respond  to  what  you  expect 
of  me,  Monsieur  le  marquis,"  he  said;  "for  I  must  humbly 
admit  to  you  that  I  am  a  very  poor  eater." 

"I  understand,"  said  the  marquis;  "you  are  accustomed 
to  delicate  dishes.  As  for  me,  I  am  a  regular  peasant, 
and  I  prefer  good,  solid,  succulent  food,  which  repairs 
the  waste  of  the  system,  to  all  the  dainties  of  a  tine 
table." 

"That 's  a  point  I  have  often  heard  King  Louis  XVIII. 
and  the  Marquis  d'Avaray  discuss,"  said  Petit-Pierre. 

The  Comte  de  Bonneville  touched  the  youth's  arm. 

"Then  you  knew  King  Louis  XVIII.  and  the  Marquis 
d'Avaray?"  said  the  old  gentleman,  in  much  amazement, 
looking  at  Petit-Pierre,  as  if  to  make  sure  that  the  youth 
was  not  laughing  at  him. 

"Yes,  I  knew  them  well,  in  my  youth,"  replied  Petit- 
Pierre,  simply. 

"  Hum  !  "  said  the  marquis,  shortly. 

They  had  now  taken  their  places  round  the  table,  Mary 
and  Bertha  with  them,  and  the  formidable  breakfast  began. 
But  in  vain  did  the  marquis  offer  dish  after  dish  to  his 
younger  guest.  Petit-Pierre  refused  all,  and  said  if  his 
host  were  willing  he  would  like  a  cup  of  tea  and  two  fresh 
eggs  from  the  fowls  he  heard  clucking  so  cheerfully  in  the 
poultry-yard. 

"As  for  fresh  eggs,"  said  the  marquis,  "that's  an  easy 
matter.  Mary  shall  get  you  some  warm  from  the  nest; 
but  as  for  tea,  the  devil  !  I  doubt  if  there  is  such  a  thing 
in  the  house." 

Mary  did  not  wait  to  be  sent  on  this  errand.  She  was 
already  leaving  the  room  when  her  father's  remark  about 
the  tea  stopped  her,  and  she  seemed  as  embarrassed  as  he. 
Evidently  tea  was  lacking.  Petit-Pierre  noticed  the 
quandary  of  his  hosts. 

"Oh!"  he  said,  "don't  give  yourself  any  uneasiness. 
Monsieur  de  Bonneville  will  have  the  kindness  to  take  a 
few  spoonfuls  from  my  dressing-case." 

VOL.    I.  — 17 


258  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Your  dressing-case  !  " 

"Yes,"  said  Petit-Pierre.  "As  I  have  contracted  the 
bad  habit  of  drinking  tea,  I  always  carry  it  with  me  in 
travelling." 

And  he  gave  the  Comte  de  Bonneville  a  little  key,  select- 
ing it  from  a  bunch  that  was  hanging  to  a  gold  chain. 
The  Comte  de  Bonneville  hastened  away  by  one  door  as 
Mary  went  out  by  the  other. 

"  Upon  my  soul  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  engulfing  an 
enormous  mouthful  of  venison,  "you  are  something  of 
a  girl,  my  young  friend;  and  if  it  were  not  for  the 
opinions  I  heard  you  express  just  now,  which  I  consider 
too  profound  for  the  female  mind,  I  should  almost  doubt 
your  sex." 

Petit-Pierre  smiled. 

"Wait  till  you  see  me  at  work,  Monsieur  le  marquis, 
when  we  meet  Philippe's  troops.  You  '11  soon  resign  the 
poor  opinion  you  are  forming  of  me  now." 

"What?  Do  you  mean  to  belong  to  any  of  our  bands?  " 
cried  the  marquis,  more  and  more  puzzled. 

"  1  hope  so,"  said  the  youth. 

"And  I'll  answer  for  it,"  said  Bonneville,  returning 
and  giving  Petit-Pierre  the  little  key  he  had  received 
from  him,  "  I  '11  answer  for  it  you  '11  always  find  him  in 
the  front  rank." 

"  I  am  glad  of  it,  my  young  friend,  "  said  the  marquis  ; 
"but  I  am  not  surprised.  God  has  not  measured  courage 
by  the  bodies  to  which  he  gives  it,  and  I  saw  in  the  old 
war  one  of  the  ladies  who  followed  M.  de  Charette  fire  her 
pistols  valiantly." 

Just  then  Mary  returned,  bringing  in  one  hand  a  teapot, 
and  in  the  other  a  plate  with  two  boiled  eggs  on  it. 

"Thank  you,  my  beautiful  child,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  in 
a  tone  of  gallant  protection,  which  reminded  M.  de  Souday 
of  the  seigneurs  of  the  old  court.  "A  thousand  excuses 
for  the  trouble  I  have  given  you." 

"You  spoke  just  now  of  his  Majesty  Louis  XVIII.," said 


Portrait  of  Louis  XVIII. 


THE   MARQUIS    DE   SOUDAY'S   REGRETS.  259 

the  Marquis  de  Souday,  "and  his  culinary  opinions.  I 
have  heard  it  said  that  he  was  extremely  fastidious  about 
his  meals  and  his  way  of  eating  them." 

"That  is  true,"  said  Petit-Pierre;  "he  had  a  fashion  of 
eating  ortolans  and  cutlets  which  was  his  alone." 

"And  yet,"  said  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  setting  his 
handsome  teeth  into  a  cutlet  and  gnawing  off  the  whole 
lean  of  it  with  one  bite,  "  it  seems  to  me  there  is  only  one 
way  of  eating  a  cutlet." 

"Your  way,  I  suppose,  Monsieur  le  marquis,"  said 
Bonneville,    laughing. 

"  Yes,  faith  !  and  as  for  ortolans,  when  by  chance  Mary 
and  Bertha  condescend  to  gunning,  and  bring  home,  not 
ortolans,  but  larks  and  fig-peckers,  I  take  them  by  the 
beak,  salt  and  pepper  them  nicely,  put  them  whole  into 
my  mouth,  and  crunch  them  off  at  the  neck.  They  are 
excellent  eaten  that  way;  only,  it  requires  two  or  three 
dozen  for  each  person." 

Petit-Pierre  laughed.  It  reminded  him  of  the  story  of 
the  Swiss  guard  who  wagered  he  would  eat  a  calf  in  six 
weeks  for  his  dinner. 

"  I  was  wrong  in  saying  that  Louis  XVIII.  had  a  pecu- 
liar way  of  eating  ortolans  and  cutlets  ;  I  should  have  said 
a  peculiar  way  of  having  them  cooked." 

"  Bless  me  !  "  exclaimed  the  marquis  ;  "  it  seems  to  me 
there  are  no  two  ways  for  that  either.  You  roast  ortolans 
on  a  spit,  and  you  broil  cutlets  on  a  gridiron." 

"True,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  who  evident^  took  pleasure 
in  all  these  recollections;  "but  his  Majesty  Louis  XVIII. 
refined  upon  the  process.  As  for  cutlets,  the  chef  at  the 
Tuileries  was  careful  to  cook  the  ones  which  'had  the 
honor,'  as  he  said,  to  be  eaten  by  the  king  between  two 
other  cutlets,  so  that  the  middle  cutlet  got  the  juices  of 
the  other  two.  He  did  something  the  same  thing  with 
the  ortolans.  Those  that  were  eaten  by  the  king  were 
put  inside  a  thrush,  and  the  thrush  inside  a  woodcock,  so 
that   by  the  time   the   ortolan  was   cooked   the  woodcock 


260  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

was  uneatable,  but  the  thrush  was  excellent,  and  the 
ortolan  superlative." 

"But  really,  young  man,"  said  the  marquis,  throwing 
himself  back  in  his  chair,  and  looking  at  Petit-Pierre  with 
extreme  astonishment,  "one  would  think  you  had  seen  the 
good  King  Louis  XVIII.  performing  all  these  gastronomic 
feats." 

"I  have  seen  him,"  replied  Petit-Pierre. 

"Did  you  have  a  place  at  court?"  asked  the  marquis, 
laughing. 

"I  was  page,"  replied  Petit-Pierre. 

"Ah!  that  explains  it  all,"  said  the  marquis.  "Upon 
my  soul  !  you  have  seen  a  good  deal  for  one  of  your  age." 

"Yes,"  replied  Petit-Pierre,  with  a  sigh.  "Too  much, 
in  fact." 

The  two  young  girls  glanced  sympathetically  at  the 
young  man.  The  face  which  looked  so  youthful  at  first 
sight  showed,  on  closer  examination,  that  a  certain  number 
of  years  had  passed  over  it,  and  that  troubles  had  left  their 
mark  there. 

The  marquis  made  two  or  three  attempts  to  continue  the 
conversation;  but  Petit-Pierre,  buried  in  thought,  seemed 
to  have  said  all  he  meant  to  say,  and  whether  he  did  not 
hear  the  various  theories  the  marquis  advanced  on  dark 
meats  and  white  meats,  and  on  the  difference  of  flavor 
between  the  wild  game  of  the  forest  and  the  domesticated 
game  of  the  poultry-yard,  or  whether  he  did  not  think  it 
worth  while  to  approve  or  to  confute,  he  maintained  an 
absolute  silence. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  this  non-responsiveness,  the 
marquis,  now  in  high  good-humor  after  the  generous  satis- 
faction of  his  appetite,  was  enchanted  with  his  young 
friend.  They  returned  to  the  salon;  but  there,  Petit- 
Pierre,  instead  of  remaining  with  the  two  young  girls  and 
the  count  and  marquis  near  the  fireplace,  —  where  a  fire 
which  testified  to  an  abundance  of  wood  from  the  neigh- 
boring forest  was   blazing,  —  Petit-Pierre,   thoughtful  or 


THE    MARQUIS   DE    SOUDAY'S    REGRETS.  261 

dreamy  as  the  reader  chooses,  went  straight  to  the  window 
and  rested  his  forehead  against  the  glass. 

An  instant  later,  as  the  marquis  was  making  sundry 
compliments  to  the  count  on  his  young  companion,  the 
latter's  name,  pronounced  in  a  curt,  imperious  tone,  made 
him  start  with  astonishment. 

Petit-Pierre  called  to  Bonneville,  who  turned  hastily 
and  ran  rather  than  walked  in  the  direction  of  the  young 
peasant.  The  latter  spoke  for  some  moments  and  seemed 
to  be  giving  orders.  At  each  sentence  uttered  by  the 
youth  Bonneville  bowed  in  token  of  assent,  and  as  soon  as 
Petit-Pierre  had  ended  what  he  had  to  say  the  count  took 
his  hat,  saluted  every  one  present,  and  left  the  room. 

Petit-Pierre  then  approached  the  marquis. 

"Monsieur  de  Souday,"  he  said,  "I  have  just  assured 
the  Comte  de  Bonneville  that  you  will  not  object  to  his 
taking  one  of  your  horses  to  make  a  trip  to  all  the 
châteaus  in  the  neighborhood  and  call  a  meeting  here  at 
Souday,  this  evening,  of  those  very  men  whom  you  quar- 
relled with  this  morning.  They  are  no  doubt  still  assem- 
bled at  Saint-Philbert.  I  have  therefore  enjoined  him  to 
make  haste." 

"But,"  said  the  marquis,  "some  of  those  gentlemen 
must  be  affronted  with  me  for  the  manner  in  which  I  spoke 
to  them  this  morning;  they  will  probably  refuse  to  come 
to  my  house." 

"An  order  shall  be  given  to  those  who  resist  an  invi- 
tation." 

"An  order  !  from  whom?  "  asked  the  marquis,  in 
surprise. 

"Why,  from  Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Berry,  from  whom 
M.  de  Bonneville  has  full  powers.  But,"  said  Petit- 
Pierre,  with  a  certain  hesitation,  "perhaps  you  fear  that 
such  a  meeting  at  the  château  de  Souday  may  have  some 
fatal  result  for  you  or  for  your  family.  In  that  case,  mar- 
quis, say  so  at  once.  The  Comte  de  Bonneville  has  not 
yet  started." 


262  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

"  God  bless  me  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  "  let  him  go,  and 
take  my  best  horse,  and  founder  him  if  he  chooses  !  " 

The  words  had  scarcely  left  his  lips  before  the  Comte  de 
Bonneville,  as  though  he  had  heard  them  and  meant  to 
profit  by  the  permission,  rode  at  full  speed  past  the  win- 
dows and  through  the  great  gates  to  the  main-road,  which 
led  to  Saint-Philbert. 

The  marquis  went  to  the  window  to  follow  the  rider 
with  his  eyes,  and  did  not  leave  it  until  he  was  lost  to 
sight.  Then  be  turned  to  speak  to  Petit-Pierre;  but 
Petit-Pierre  had  disappeared,  and  when  the  marquis  asked 
his  daughters  where  he  was  they  answered  that  the  young 
man  had  gone  to  bis  room,  remarking  that  he  had  letters 
to  write. 

"  Queer  little  fellow  !  "  muttered  the  marquis  to  himself. 


THE   VENDÉANS   OF   1832.  263 


XXIX. 

THE   VENDÉANS    OF    1832. 

The  same  day,  about  five  in  the  afternoon  the  Comte  de 
Bonneville  returned.  He  had  seen  five  of  the  principal 
leaders  and  they  agreed  to  be  at  Souday  that  night  between 
eight  and  nine  o'clock. 

The  marquis,  always  hospitable,  ordered  his  cook  to 
tax  the  poultry-yard  and  the  larder  to  the  utmost,  and  to 
get  ready  the  most  plentiful  supper  she  could  possibly 
manage. 

The  five  leaders  who  agreed  to  assemble  that  evening 
were  Louis  Renaud,  Pascal,  Cœur-de-Lion,  Gaspard,  and 
Achille.  Those  of  our  readers  who  are  somewhat  familiar 
with  the  events  of  1832  will  easily  recognize  the  person- 
ages who  concealed  their  identity  under  these  noms  de 
guerre  for  the  purpose  of  throwing  the  authorities  off  the 
scent  in  case  of  intercepted  despatches. 

By  eight  o'clock  Jean  Oullier,  to  the  marquis's  deep 
regret,  had  not  returned.  Consequently,  the  care  of  the 
entrance  gates  was  intrusted  to  Mary,  who  was  not  to 
open  them  unless  in  reply  to  a  knock  given  in  a  peculiar 
manner. 

The  salon,  with  shutters  closed  and  curtains  drawn,  was 
the  place  selected  for  the  conference.  By  seven  o'clock 
four  persons  were  ready  and  waiting  in  this  room,  — 
namely,  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  the  Comte  de  Bonneville, 
Petit-Pierre,  and  Bertha.  Mary,  as  we  have  said,  was 
stationed  at  the  gates,  in  a  sort  of  little  lodge,  which  had 
an   iron-barred  window  toward   the    road,  through  which 


264  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

it  was  possible  to  see  whoever  rapped,  and  so  admit  none 
until  assured  of  the  visitor's  identity. 

Of  all  those  in  the  salon  the  most  impatient  was  Petit- 
Pierre,  whose  dominant  characteristic  did  not  seem  to  be 
calmness.  Though  the  clock  said  barely  half-past  seven, 
and  the  meeting  was  fixed  for  eight,  he  went  restlessly  to 
the  door  again  and  again  to  hear  if  any  sounds  along  the 
road  announced  the  expected  gentlemen.  At  last,  pre- 
cisely at  eight  o'clock,  a  knock  was  heard  at  the  gate,  or 
rather  three  knocks  separated  in  a  certain  manner,  which 
indicated  the  arrival  of  a  leader. 

"Ah!"  exclaimed  Petit -Pierre,  going  eagerly  to  the 
door. 

But  the  Comte  de  Bonneville  stopped  him  with  a  respect- 
ful smile  and  gesture. 

"You  are  right,"  said  the  young  man,  and  he  went  back 
and  seated  himself  in  the  darkest  corner  of  the  salon. 
Almost  at  the  same  moment  one  of  the  expected  leaders 
appeared  in  the  doorway. 

"M.  Louis  Renaud,"  said  the  Comte  de  Bonneville,  loud 
enough  for  Petit-Pierre  to  hear  him,  and  to  recognize  the 
man  under  the  disguise  of  the  assumed  name. 

The  Marquis  de  Souday  went  forward  to  meet  the  new- 
comer, with  all  the  more  eagerness  because  this  young  man 
was  one  of  the  few  at  the  conference  of  the  morning  who 
had  favored  an  immediate  call  to  arms. 

"Ah,  my  dear  count,"  said  the  marquis,  "come  in. 
You  are  the  first  to  arrive,  and  that 's  a  good  omen." 

"If  I  am  the  first,  my  dear  marquis,"  replied  Louis 
Renaud,  "I  assure  you  it  is  not  that  others  are  less  eager; 
but  my  home  being  nearer  to  the  château  I  have  not  so  far 
to  come,  you  know." 

So  saying,  the  personage  who  called  himself  Louis 
Renaud,  and  who  was  dressed  in  the  ordinary  simple 
clothes  of  a  Breton  peasant,  advanced  into  the  room  with 
such  perfect  juvenile  grace  and  bowed  to  Bertha  with  an 
ease  so  essentially  aristocratic,  that  it  was  quite  evident  he 


THE   VENDÉANS   OF   1832.  265 

would  have  found  it  difficult  to  assume,  even  momentarily, 
the  manners  and  language  of  the  social  caste  whose  clothes 
he  borrowed. 

These  social  duties  duly  paid  to  the  marquis  and 
Bertha,  the  new-comer  turned  his  attention  to  the  Comte  de 
Bonneville;  but  the  latter,  knowing  the  impatience  of 
Petit-Pierre,  who,  though  he  remained  in  his  corner,  was 
making  his  presence  known  by  movements  the  count  alone 
could  interpret,  at  once  proceeded  to  open  the  question. 

"My  dear  count,"  he  said  to  the  so-called  Louis  Penaud, 
"you  know  the  extent  of  my  powers,  you  have  read  the 
letter  of  her  Royal  Highness  Madame,  and  you  know  that, 
momentarily  at  least,  I  am  her  intermediary  to  you.  What 
is  your  opinion  on  the  situation?  " 

"My  opinion,  my  dear  count,  I  may  not  give  precisely 
as  I  gave  it  this  morning.  Here,  where  I  know  I  am 
among  the  ardent  supporters  of  Madame,  I  shall  risk  tell- 
ing the  plain  truth." 

"Yes,  the  plain  truth,"  said  Bonneville;  "that  is  what 
Madame  desires  to  know.  And  whatever  you  tell  me,  my 
dear  count,  she  will  know  exactly  as  if  she  heard  it." 

"  Well,  my  opinion  is  that  nothing  ought  to  be  done 
until  the  arrival  of  the  maréchal." 

"  The  maréchal  !  "  exclaimed  Petit-Pierre.  "  Is  he  not 
at  Nantes?" 

Louis  Renaud,  who  had  not  before  noticed  the  young 
man  in  his  corner,  turned  his  eyes  to  him  on  hearing  this 
question.     Then  he  bowed,  and  replied  :  — 

"On  reaching  home  this  morning  I  heard  for  the  first 
time  that  the  maréchal  had  left  Nantes  as  soon  as  he  heard 
of  the  failure  at  Marseille,  and  no  one  knows  either  the 
road  he  has  taken  or  the  purpose  that  carried  him  away." 

Petit-Pierre  stamped  his  foot  with  impatience. 

"But,"  he  cried,  "the  maréchal  is  the  soul  of  the  enter- 
prise. His  absence  will  check  the  uprising  and  diminish 
the  confidence  of  our  men.  Unless  he  commands,  all  the 
leaders  will  be  of  equal  rank,  and  we  shall  see  the  same 


266  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

rivalries  among  them  that  were  so  fatal  to  the  royalist 
party  in  the  old  wars  of  La  Vendée." 

Seeing  that  Petit -Pierre  assumed  the  conversation,  Bon- 
neville stepped  backward,  giving  place  to  the  youth,  who 
now  advanced  into  the  circle  of  light  cast  by  the  lamps 
and  candles.  Louis  Renaud  looked  with  amazement  at  a 
young  man,  apparently  almost  a  child,  who  spoke  with 
such  assurance  and  decision. 

"It  is  a  delay,  monsieur,"  he  said;  "that  is  all.  You 
may  be  sure  that  as  soon  as  the  maréchal  knows  of  the 
arrival  of  Madame  in  La  Vendée,  he  will  instantly  return 
to  his  post." 

"Did  not  M.  de  Bonneville  tell  you  that  Madame  was  on 
the  way  and  would  be  speedily  among  her  friends?  " 

"  Yes,  he  did  tell  me  so  ;  and  the  news  has  given  me  the 
keenest  satisfaction." 

"Delay!  delay!"  murmured  Petit-Pierre.  "I  have 
always  heard  it  said  that  any  uprising  in  your  part  of  the 
country  ought  to  take  place  during  the  first  two  weeks  in 
May.  After  that  the  inhabitants  are  busy  with  their 
agriculture  and  are  not  so  easily  aroused.  Here  it  is  the 
14th,  and  we  are  already  late.  As  for  the  leaders,  they 
are  convoked,  are  they  not?  " 

"Yes,  monsieur,"  said  Louis  Renaud,  with  a  certain  sad 
gravity,  "they  are;  and  I  ought  to  add  that  you  can  hardly 
count  on  any  but  the  leaders."  Then  he  added,  with  a 
sigh,  "And  not  all  of  them  either,  as  M.  le  Marquis  de 
Souday  discovered  this  morning." 

"  You  surely  do  not  mean  to  say  that,  monsieur  !  "  cried 
Petit -Pierre.  "  Lukewarmness  in  La  Vendée  !  and  that 
too,  when  our  friends  in  Marseille  —  and  I  can  speak 
confidently,  for  I  have  just  arrived  from  there  —  are 
so  furious  at  their  failure  that  they  are  longing  to  take 
revenge  ! " 

A  pale  smile  crossed  the  lips  of  the  young  leader. 

"You  are  from  the  South,  monsieur,"  he  said,  "though 
you  have  not  the  accent  of  it.  " 


THE   VENDÉANS   OF   1S32.  26  < 

"You  are  right;  I  am,"  answered  Petit-Pierre.  "What 
of  it?  " 

"You  must  uot  confound  the  South  with  the  West,  the 
Marseillais  with  the  Vendéans.  A  proclamation  may  rouse 
the  South,  and  a  check  rebuff  it.  Not  so  in  La  Vendée. 
When  you  have  been  here  some  time  you  will  appreciate 
the  truth  of  what  I  say.  La  Vendée  is  grave,  cold,  silent. 
All  projects  are  discussed  slowly,  deliberately  ;  the  chances 
of  success  and  defeat  are  each  considered.  Then,  if  La 
Vendée  sees  a  prospect  of  success  she  holds  out  her  hand, 
says  yes,  and  dies,  if  need  be,  to  fuliil  her  promise.  Put 
as  she  knows  that  yes  and  no  are  words  of  life  and  death  to 
her,  she  is  slow  in  uttering  them." 

"You  forget  enthusiasm,  monsieur,'''  said  Petit -Pierre. 

"  Ah,  enthusiasm  !  "  he  replied  ;  "  I  heard  that  talked  of 
in  my  boyhood.  It  is  a  divinity  of  a  past  age  which  has 
stepped  from  its  pedestal  since  the  days  when  so  many 
pledges  were  made  to  our  fathers  only  to  be  furgotten.  Do 
you  know  what  passed  this  morning  at  Saint-Philbert?  " 

"In  part,  yes;  the  marquis  told  me." 

"But  after  the  marquis  left?" 

"No;  I  know  nothing." 

"  Well,  out  of  the  twelve  leaders  present  who  were 
appointed  to  command  the  twelve  divisions,  seven  pro- 
tested in  the  name  of  their  men,  and  they  have  by  this 
time  sent  those  men  back  to  their  homes,  all  the  while 
declaring,  every  one  of  them,  that  personally  and  under 
all  circumstances,  they  would  shed  their  blood  for  Madame; 
only  they  would  not,  they  added,  take  before  God  the  ter- 
rible responsibility  of  dragging  their  peasantry  into  an 
enterprise  which  promised  to  be  nothing  more,  so  it  seemed 
to  them,  than  a  bloody  skirmish." 

"Then  it  comes  to  this,"  said  Petit-Pierre.  "Must  we 
renounce  all  hope,  all  effort?  " 

The  same  sad  smile  crossed  the  lips  of  the  young  leader. 

"All  hope,  yes,  perhaps;  all  effort,  no.  Madame  has 
written  that  she  is  urged  forward  by   the  committee  in 


268  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Paris;  Madame  assures  us  that  she  has  ramifications  in 
the  army.  Let  us  therefore  make  the  attempt  !  Possibly 
a  riot  in  Paris,  combined  with  a  defection  in  the  army, 
may  prove  her  judgment  to  have  been  better  than  ours.  If 
we  make  no  attempt  on  her  behalf,  Madame  will  always  be 
convinced  that  had  it  been  made  it  would  have  been  suc- 
cessful; and  no  doubt  ought  to  be  left  in  Madame's  mind." 

"But  if  the  attempt  fails?  "  cried  Petit-Perre. 

"Five  or  six  hundred  men  will  have  been  uselessly 
killed,  that  is  all.  It  is  well  that  from  time  to  time  a 
party,  even  if  it  fails,  should  give  such  examples,  not  only 
to  its  own  country  but  to  neighboring  nations." 

"  You  are  not  of  those  who  have  sent  back  their  men, 
then?"  asked  Petit-Pierre. 

"No,  monsieur;  but  I  am  of  those  who  have  sworn  to 
die  for  her  Royal  Highness.  Besides,"  he  added,  "per- 
haps the  affair  has  already  begun,  and  there  may  be  no 
choice  but  to  follow  the  movement." 

"How  so?"  asked  Petit-Pierre,  Bonneville,  and  the 
marquis,   in  one  breath. 

"  Shots  were  fired  to-day  at  the  fair  at  Montaigu  —  " 

"  And  firing  is  going  on  now  at  the  fords  of  the  Boulogne,  " 
said  an  unknown  voice  from  the  doorway,  on  the  threshold 
of  which  a  new  personage  now  appeared. 


THE   WARNING.  2G9 


XXX. 


THE   WARNING. 


The  person  we  now  introduce,  or  rather  the  person  who 
now  introduced  himself  into  the  salon  of  the  Marquis  de 
Souday,  was  the  commissary-general  of  the  future  Vendéan 
army,  who  had  changed  his  name,  well-known  at  the  bar 
of  Nantes,  for  that  of  Pascal. 

He  had  gone  several  times  into  foreign  lands  to  confer 
with  Madame,  and  knew  her  personally.  It  was  scarcely 
two  months  since  he  had  last  seen  her,  on  which  occasion 
after  delivering  to  her  Royal  Highness  the  news  from 
France,  he  had  received  her  last  instructions  in  return. 
It  was  he  who  had  come  into  La  Vendée  to  tell  the  adher- 
ents to  hold  themselves  in  readiness. 

"  Aha  !  "  exclaimed  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  with  a 
motion  of  the  lips  which  meant  that  he  did  not  hold  law- 
yers in  cherished  admiration,  "M.  le  Commissaire-général 
Pascal.'' 

"Who  brings  news,  apparently,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  with 
the  evident  intention  of  drawing  upon  himself  the  atten- 
tion of  the  new-comer.  The  latter,  when  he  heard  the 
voice,  turned  immediately  to  the  young  man,  who  made 
him  an  almost  imperceptible  sign  with  lips  and  eyes,  which, 
however,  sufficed  to  let  him  know  what  was  expected  of 
him. 

"News?    Yes,"  he  said. 

"Good  or  bad?  "  asked  Louis  Renaud. 

"Mixed.     But  we  '11  begin  with  the  good." 

"Go  on." 


270  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Her  Royal  Highness  has  crossed  the  South  success- 
fully, and  is  now  safe  and  sound  in  La  Vendée." 

"Are  you  sure  of  that?"  asked  the  Marquis  de  Souday 
and  Louis  Renaud  in  one  breath. 

"As  sure  as  that  I  see  you  all  five  here  in  good  health," 
replied  Pascal.     "Now  let  us  go  to  the  other  news." 

"Have  you  heard  anything  from  Montaigu?  "  asked 
Louis  Renaud. 

"They  fought  there  yesterday,"  said  Pascal;  "that  is, 
a  few  shots  were  fired  by  the  National  Guard  and  some 
peasants  were  killed  and  wounded." 

"What  occasioned  it?"  asked  Petit-Pierre. 

"A  dispute  at  the  fair,  which  became  a  riot." 

"Who  commands  at  Montaigu?"  again  asked  Petit- 
Pierre. 

"A  mere  captain  usually,"  replied  Pascal;  "but  yester- 
day, in  consequence  of  the  fair,  the  sub-prefect  and  the 
general  commanding  the  military  sub-division  were  both 
there." 

"Do  you  know  the  general's  name?  " 

"Dermoncourt." 

"And  pray,  who  is  General  Dermoncourt?" 

"  Under  what  head  do  you  desire  to  know  of  him,  mon- 
sieur, —  man,  opinions,  or  character?  " 

"All  three  heads." 

"  As  a  man,  he  is  from  sixty  to  sixty -two  years  old,  and 
he  belongs  to  that  iron  race  which  fought  the  wars  of  the 
Revolution  and  the  Empire.  He  will  be  night  and  day  in 
the  saddle,  and  not  leave  us  an  instant's  rest." 

"  Very  good,  "  said  Louis  Renaud,  laughing.  "  Then  we  '11 
try  to  tire  him  out;  and  as  we  are,  none  of  us,  half  his  age 
we  shall  be  very  unlucky  or  very  stupid  if  we  fail." 

"His  opinions?  "  asked  Petit-Pierre. 

"At  heart  I  believe  him  to  be  a  republican." 

"In  spite  of  twelve  years'  service  under  the  Empire! 
He  must  have  been  dyed  in  the  wool." 

"There  are  many  like  him.     You  remember  what  Henri 


Portrait  ok  Dermoncourt 


THE    WARNING.  271 

IV.   said  of   the   Leaguers, — 'The   barrel   smells   of   the 
herring.  '  " 

"His  character?  " 

"  Oh,  as  for  that,  loyalty  itself  !  He  is  neither  an 
Amadis  nor  a  Galahad.  He  's  a  Ferragus,  and  if  ever 
Madame  had  the  misfortune  to  fall  into  his  hands  —  " 

"What  are  you  talking  about,  Monsieur  Pascal?  " 
exclaimed  Petit-Pierre. 

"I  am  a  lawyer,  monsieur,"  replied  the  civil  commis- 
sary, "and  in  that  capacity  I  foresee  all  the  chances  of  a 
case.  I  repeat,  therefore,  that  if  Madame  were  unfortu- 
nately to  fall  into  the  hands  of  General  Dermoncourt  she 
would  have  full  opportunity  to  recognize  his  courtesy." 

"Then,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  "that  is  the  sort  of  enemy 
Madame  would  choose  for  herself,  — brave,  vigorous,  and 
loyal.  Monsieur,  we  are  fortunate  —  But  you  spoke  of 
shots  at  the  fords  of  the  river?  " 

"I  presume  that  those  I  heard  on  my  way  came  from 
there." 

"Perhaps,"  said  the  marquis,  "Bertha  had  better  go 
and  reconnoitre.  She  will  soon  let  us  know  what  is 
happening." 

Bertha  rose. 

"  What  !  "  exclaimed  Petit-Pierre,  "  do  you  send  made- 
moiselle?" 

"  Why  not?  "  asked  the  marquis. 

"I  think  it  is  a  man's  duty,  not  a  woman's." 

"My  young  friend,"  said  the  old  gentleman,  "in  such 
matters  I  rely  first  upon  myself,  next  upon  Jean  Oullier, 
and  after  Jean  Oullier  on  Bertha  and  on  Mary.  I  desire 
the  honor  of  staying  here  with  you;  my  fellow,  Jean 
Oullier,  is  off  amusing  himself.  Consequently,  Bertha 
must  go." 

Bertha  went  toward  the  door;  but  on  the  threshold  she 
met  her  sister  and  exchanged  a  few  words  with  her  in  a 
low  voice. 

"Here  is  Mary,"  she  said,  turning  back. 


272  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Ah  !  "  exclaimed  the  marquis  ;  "  did  you  hear  the 
firing,    my  girl?" 

"Yes,  father,"  said  Mary;  "they  are  fighting." 

"Where?" 

"At  the  springs  of  Baugé." 

"You  are  sure?" 

"Yes;  the  shots  came  from  the  marsh." 

"You  see,"  said  the  marquis;  "the  news  is  precise. 
Who  keeps  the  gate  in  your  absence?" 

"Rose  Tinguy." 

"  Listen  !  "  said  Petit-Pierre. 

Loud  raps  were  heard  upon  the  gate. 

"  The  devil  !  "  cried  the  marquis  ;  "  that 's  not  one  of  us." 

They  all  listened  attentively. 

"  Open  !  open  !  "  cried  a  voice.  "  There  's  not  an  instant 
to  lose  !  " 

"  It  is  his  voice  !  "  exclaimed  Mary,  eagerly. 

"His  voice?  —  whose  voice?  "  said  the  marquis. 

"Yes,  I  recognize  it,"  said  Bertha,  —  "the  voice  of  young 
Baron  Michel." 

"What  does  that  cabbage-grower  want  here?"  said  the 
marquis,  making  a  step  toward  the  door  as  if  to  prevent 
his  entrance. 

"  Let  him  come,  let  him  come,  marquis  !  "  cried  Bonne- 
ville.    "I  '11  answer  for  him;  there  's  nothing  to  fear." 

He  had  hardly  said  the  words  before  the  sound  of  a 
rapid  step  was  heard,  and  the  young  baron  rushed  into  the 
salon,  pale,  breathless,  covered  with  mud,  dripping  with 
perspiration,  and  with  scarcely  breath  enough  to  say:  — 

"  Not  a  moment  to  lose  !  Fly  !  Escape  !  They  are 
coming  !  " 

He  dropped  on  one  knee,  resting  one  hand  on  the  ground, 
for  his  breath  failed  him,  his  strength  was  exhausted. 
He  had  done,  as  he  promised  Jean  Oullier,  nearly  a  mile 
and  a  half  in  six  minutes. 

There  was  a  moment  of  trouble  and  confusion  in  the 
salon. 


THE   WARNING.  273 

"To  arms!  "  cried  the  marquis.  Springing  to  his  own 
gun,  he  pointed  to  a  rack  at  the  corner  of  the  room,  where 
three  or  four  carbines  and  fowling-pieces  were  hanging. 

The  Comte  de  Bonneville  and  Pascal,  with  one  and  the 
same  movement,  threw  themselves  before  Petit-Pierre  as 
if  to  defend  him. 

Mary  sprang  to  the  young  baron  to  raise  him  and  give 
him  what  help  he  needed,  while  Bertha  ran  to  a  window 
looking  toward  the  forest  and  opened  it. 

Shots  were  then  heard,  evidently  coming  nearer,  though 
still  at  some  distance. 

"They  are  on  the  Viette  des  Biques,"  said  Bertha. 

"Nonsense!"  said  the  marquis;  "impossible  they  should 
attempt  such  a  dangerous  path  !  " 

"They  are  there,  father,"  said  Bertha. 

"Yes,  yes,"  gasped  Michel.  "I  saw  them  there;  they 
have  torches.  A  woman  is  guiding  them,  marching  at 
their  head;  the  general  is  second." 

"Oh,  that  cursed  Jean  Oullier  !  Why  isn't  he  here?" 
said  the  marquis. 

"He  is  fighting,  Monsieur  le  marquis,"  said  Michel. 
"He  sent  me;  he  couldn't  come  himself." 

"  He  !  "  exclaimed  the  marquis. 

"But  I  was  coming,  mademoiselle;  I  was  coming  myself. 
I  knew  yesterday  the  château  was  to  be  attacked,  but  I  was 
a  prisoner;  I  got  down  from  a  second-story  window." 

"  Good  God  !  "  cried  Mary,  turning  pale. 

"Bravo  !  "  exclaimed  Bertha. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  tranquilly,  "I  think 
we  must  decide  on  a  course.  Shall  we  fight?  If  we  do, 
we  must  arm  ourselves  at  once,  bar  the  gates,  and  take 
our  posts.  Shall  we  escape?  If  so,  there  is  even  less 
time  to  lose." 

"  Let  us  fight  !  "  said  the  marquis. 

"No,  escape!"  cried  Bonneville.  "When  Petit-Pierre 
is  safe  we  will  fight." 

"What  is  that  you  say,  count?  "  exclaimed  Petit-Pierre. 

VOL.    I.  — 18 


274  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"I  say  that  nothing  is  ready;  we  are  not  prepared  to 
fight.     Are  we,    gentlemen?" 

"  Oh,  yes,  we  can  always  fight,  "  said  the  youthful,  light- 
hearted  voice  of  a  new-comer,  addressing  himself  partly  to 
those  in  the  salon,  and  partly  to  two  other  young  men  who 
were  following  him,  and  whom,  no  doubt,  he  had  met  at 
the  gate. 

"  Ah,  Gaspard  !  Gaspard  !  "  cried  Bonneville. 

Springing  to  meet  the  new  arrival,  he  whispered  some- 
thing in  his  ear. 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  Gaspard,  turning  to  the  others,  "the 
Comte  de  Bonneville  is  perfectly  right;  we  must  retreat." 
Then  addressing  the  marquis,  he  added,  "  Have  n't  you 
some  secret  door  or  issue  to  the  castle,  marquis?  We 
have  no  time  to  lose  ;  the  last  shots  we  heard  at  the  gate 
—  Achille,  Cœur-de-Lion,  and  I  —  were  not  half  a  mile 
distant." 

"Gentlemen,"  said  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  "you  are  in 
my  house,  and  it  is  for  me  to  assume  the  responsibility. 
Silence  !  listen  to  me  and  obey  me  to-night;  1  will  obey 
you  to-morrow." 

All  were  silent. 

"Mary,"  said  the  marquis,  "close  the  gates,  but  do  not 
barricade  them;  leave  them  so  that  they  can  be  opened  at 
the  first  rap.  Bertha,  to  the  underground  passage  instantly, 
and  don't  lose  a  moment.  My  daughters  and  I  will  receive 
the  general  and  do  the  honors  of  the  château  to  him.  To- 
morrow, wherever  you  are,  we  will  join  you;  only,  let  us 
know  where  that  will  be." 

Mary  sprang  from  the  room  to  execute  her  father's 
order,  while  Bertha,  signing  to  Petit-Pierre  to  follow  her, 
went  out  by  the  opposite  door,  crossed  the  inner  courtyard, 
entered  the  chapel,  took  two  wax  tapers  from  the  altar, 
lighted  them,  gave  one  to  Bonneville,  one  to  Pascal,  and 
then,  pushing  a  spring  which  made  the  front  of  the  altar 
turn  of  itself,  she  pointed  to  a  stairway,  leading  to  the 
vaults  in  which  the  lords  of  Souday  were  formerly  buried. 


THE    WARNING.  275 

"You  can't  lose  your  way,"  she  said;  "you  will  find  a 
door  at  the  farther  end,  and  the  key  is  in  it.  That  door 
leads  into  the  open  country.  These  gentlemen  all  know 
how  to  find  their  way  there." 

Petit-Pierre  took  Bertha's  hand  and  pressed  it  warmly. 
Then  he  sprang  down  the  steps  to  the  vault  behind  Bonne- 
ville and  Pascal,  who  lighted  the  way. 

Louis  Kenaucl,  Achille,  Cœur-de-Lion,  and  Gaspard 
followed  Petit-Pierre. 

Bertha  closed  the  aperture  behind  them.  She  noticed 
that  Michel  was  not  among  the  fugitives. 


276  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XXXI. 

MY   OLD    CKONT    LORIOT. 

The  Marquis  de  Souday,  after  watching  the  fugitives  with 
his  eyes  until  they  entered  the  chapel,  gave  one  of  those 
deep  exclamations  which  mean  that  the  breast  is  relieved 
of  a  heavy  weight  ;  then  he  returned  to  the  vestibule.  But 
instead  of  proceeding  from  the  vestibule  to  the  salon,  he 
went  from  the  vestibule  to  the  kitchen. 

Contrary  to  all  his  habits  and  to  the  great  astonishment 
of  his  cook,  he  walked  to  the  fire,  raised  the  covers  of  the 
saucepans  anxiously,  made  sure  that  no  ragout  was  sticking 
to  the  bottom  of  them,  and  put  back  the  spits  a  trifle  so 
that  no  unexpected  flame  should  dishonor  the  roasts  ; 
having  done  this  he  returned  to  the  vestibule,  thence  to  the 
dining-room,  where  he  inspected  the  bottles,  doubled  their 
number,  looked  to  see  if  the  table  was  properly  set,  and 
then,  satisfied  with  the  inspection,  returned  to  the  salon. 

There  he  found  his  daughters,  the  castle  gate  being 
intrusted  to  Rosine,  whose  only  duty  was  to  open  it  on  the 
first  rap. 

The  girls  were  seated  beside  the  fire  when  their  father 
entered.  Mary  was  anxious,  Bertha  dreamy.  Both  were 
thinking  of  Michel.  Bertha  was  intoxicated  with  that 
pungent  joy  which  follows  the  revelation  of  love  in  the 
heart  of  the  one  we  love  ;  she  fancied  she  read  in  the 
glances  of  the  young  baron  the  assurance  that  it  was  for  her 
the  poor  lad,  so  timid,  so  hesitating,  had  conquered  his 
weakness  and  braved  real  perils.  She  measured  the  great- 
ness of  the  love  she  supposed  him  to  feel  by  the  revolution 


MY   OLD    CRONY    LORIOT.  277 

that  love  had  evidently  made  in  his  nature.  She  built  her 
castles  in  the  air,  and  blamed  herself  bitterly  for  not  having 
urged  him  to  return  to  the  château  when  she  noticed  that 
he  did  not  follow  those  whom  his  devotion  had  saved. 
Then  she  smiled  ;  for  suddenly  a  thought  crossed  her 
mind  :  if  he  had  remained  behind  he  must  be  hidden  in 
some  corner  of  the  château,  and  was  it  not  for  the  pleasure 
of  meeting  her  privately  ?  Perhaps  if  she  went  into  the 
shrubbery  of  the  park  he  would  start  up  beside  her  and 
say  :  "  See  what  I  have  done  to  obtain  a  word  with  you  !  " 

The  marquis  had  scarcely  seated  himself  in  his  accus- 
tomed easy-chair,  and  had  not  had  time  to  notice  the  pre- 
occupation of  his  daughters,  which  he  would,  of  course, 
attribute  to  another  cause  than  the  true  one,  when  a  single 
rap  was  heard  on  the  gate.  The  marquis  started,  —  not  be- 
cause he  did  not  expect  the  rap,  but  because  this  rap  was  not 
the  one  he  expected.  It  was  timid,  almost  obsequious,  and, 
consequently,  there  was  nothing  military  about  it. 

"  Oh  !  oh  !  "  exclaimed  the  marquis  ;  "  whom  have  we 
here,  I  'd  like  to  know." 

"  Some  one  knocked,"  said  Bertha,  coming  out  of  her 
re  very. 

"  One  rap,"  said  Mary. 

The  marquis  shook  his  head  as  if  to  say,  "  That 's  not 
the  point,"  and  then,  deciding  to  see  for  himself  what  the 
matter  was,  he  left  the  salon,  crossed  the  vestibule,  and 
advanced  as  far  as  the  top  step  of  the  portico. 

There,  instead  of  the  bayonets  and  sabres  he  was  expect- 
ing to  see  glitter  in  the  darkness,  instead  of  the  soldierly 
figures  and  moustaches  with  which  he  proposed  to  make 
acquaintance,  the  Marquis  de  Souday  saw  nothing  but  the 
enormous  dome  of  a  blue  cotton  umbrella,  which  approached 
him,  point  forward,  up  the  steps  of  the  portico. 

As  this  umbrella,  steadily  advancing  like  a  turtle's  cara- 
pace, threatened  to  put  out  his  eye  with  its  point,  which 
stuck  forth  like  the  central  spot  of  an  ancient  shield,  the 
marquis  raised  the  orb  of  this  buckler  and  came  face  to  face 


278  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

with  a  weasel's  muzzle,  surmounted  by  two  little,  glittering 
eyes,  like  carbuncles,  and  topped  with  a  very  tall  hat, 
extremely  narrow  in  the  brim  and  so  much  brushed  and 
rebrushed  that  it  shone  in  the  dusky  light  as  though  it 
were  varnished. 

"  By  all  the  devils  of  hell  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  "  if  it 
is  n't  my  old  crony  Loriot  !  " 

"  Ready  to  offer  you  his  little  services  if  you  think  him 
worthy,"  replied  a  falsetto  voice  which  its  owner  endeav- 
ored to  make  ingratiating. 

"  You  are  very  welcome  indeed  to  Souday,  Maître  Loriot," 
said  the  marquis,  in  a  tone  of  good-humor  and  as  if  he  ex- 
pected some  genuine  pleasure  from  the  presence  of  the  per- 
son he  welcomed  so  cordially.  "  I  expect  quite  a  numerous 
party  this  evening,  and  you  shall  help  me  do  the  honors. 
Come  in,  and  see  the  young  ladies." 

Thereupon  the  old  gentleman,  with  an  easy  air  that 
showed  how  convinced  he  was  of  the  distance  between  a 
Marquis  de  Souday  and  a  village  notary,  preceded  his  guest 
into  the  salon.  It  is  true  that  Maître  Loriot  took  so  much 
time  to  wipe  his  boots  on  the  mat  which  lay  at  the  door  of 
that  sanctuary  that  the  politeness  of  the  marquis,  had  he 
exercised  it  in  remaining  behind  his  visitor,  would  have  been 
sorely  tried  and  lessened. 

Let  us  profit  by  the  moment  when  the  legal  functionary 
shuts  his  umbrella  and  dries  his  feet  to  sketch  his  portrait, 
if  indeed  the  undertaking  is  not  beyond  our  powers. 

Maître  Loriot,  the  notary  of  Machecoul,  was  a  little  old 
fellow,  thin  and  slim  and  seeming  smaller  than  he  really 
was  from  his  habit  of  never  speaking  except  half  double  in 
an  attitude  of  the  profoundest  respect.  A  long,  sharp  nose 
was  the  whole  of  his  face  ;  nature,  in  developing  beyond  all 
reason  that  feature  of  his  countenance,  had  economized  on  the 
rest  with  such  extraordinary  parsimony  that  it  was  neces- 
sary to  look  at  him  for  some  time  before  perceiving  that 
Maître  Loriot  had  a  mouth  and  chin  and  eyes  like  other 
men  ;  but  when  that  knowledge  was  once  attained  it  was 


MY   OLD   CRONY   LORIOT.  279 

observable  that  the  eyes  were  vivacious  and  the  mouth  not 
by  any  means  devoid  of  shrewdness. 

Maître  Loriot  fulfilled  the  promises  of  his  physiognomi- 
cal prospectus  ;  and  he  was  clever  enough  to  wring  some 
thirty  thousand  francs  out  of  a  country  practice  in  which 
his  predecessors  had  hardly  managed  to  make  both  ends 
meet.  To  attain  this  result,  supposed  until  he  came  to  be 
impossible,  M.  Loriot  had  studied,  not  the  Code,  but  men  ; 
he  had  learned  from  that  study  that  vanity  and  pride 
were  the  dominant  instincts  of  mankind;  and  he  had,  in 
consequence,  endeavored  to  make  himself  agreeable  to 
those  two  vices,  in  which  effort  he  succeeded  so  well  that 
he  soon  became  absolutely  necessary  to  those  who  possessed 
them. 

By  reason  of  this  system  of  behavior,  politeness  in 
Maître  Loriot  had  become  servility  ;  he  did  not  bow,  he 
prostrated  himself  ;  and,  like  the  fakirs  of  India,  he  had  so 
trained  his  body  to  certain  submissive  motions  that  this 
attitude  was  now  habitual  with  him.  Never  would  he 
have  addressed  a  titled  person,  were  that  person  only  a 
baron  or  even  a  chevalier,  in  any  other  than  the  third  per- 
son. He  showed  a  gratitude  both  humble  and  overflowing 
for  all  affability  bestowed  upon  him  ;  and  as,  at  the  same 
time,  he  manifested  an  exaggerated  devotion  to  the  inter- 
ests confided  to  him,  he  had  finally,  little  by  little,  obtained 
a  very  considerable  clientele  among  the  nobility  of  the 
neighborhood. 

But  the  thing  above  all  others  which  contributed  to  the 
success  of  Maître  Loriot  in  the  department  of  the  Loire- 
Inférieure  and  even  in  the  adjoining  departments,  was  the 
ardor  of  his  political  opinions.  He  was  one  of  those  who 
might  well  be  called  "  more  royalist  than  the  king  himself." 
His  little  gray  eye  flamed  when  he  heard  the  name  of  a 
Jacobin,  and  to  his  mind  all  who  had  ever  belonged  to  the 
liberal  side,  from  M.  de  Chateaubriand  to  M.  de  la  Fayette 
were  Jacobins.  Never  would  he  have  recognized  the  mon- 
archy of  July,  and  he  always  called  the  King  Louis-Philippe 


280  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Monsieur  le  Duc  d'Orléans,"  not  even  allowing  hiui  the 
title  of  Royal  Highness  which  Charles  X.  did  grant  him. 

Maître  Loriot  was  a  frequent  visitor  to  the  Marquis  de 
Souday.  It  was  part  of  his  policy  to  parade  an  extreme 
respect  for  this  illustrious  relic  of  the  former  social  order,  — 
a  social  order  he  deeply  regretted;  and  his  respect  had  gone 
so  far  that  he  had  made  various  loans  to  the  marquis,  who, 
being  very  careless,  as  we  have  said,  in  the  matter  of  money, 
neglected  as  a  matter  of  course  to  pay  the  interest  on  them. 

The  Marquis  de  Souday  always  welcomed  Maître  Loriot, 
partly  on  account  of  the  said  loans;  also  because  the  old 
gentleman's  fibre  was  not  less  sensitive  than  that  of  others 
to  agreeable  flattery  ;  and,  lastly,  because  the  coolness 
which  existed  between  the  owner  of  Souday  and  the  other 
proprietors  of  the  neighborhood  made  him  rather  lonely, 
and  he  was  glad  of  any  distraction  to  the  monotony  of  his 
life. 

When  the  little  notary  thought  his  boots  were  cleaned 
of  every  vestige  of  mud  he  entered  the  salon.  There  he 
again  bowed  to  the  marquis,  who  had  returned  to  his  usual 
easy  chair,  and  then  he  began  to  compliment  the  two  young 
girls.  But  the  marquis  did  not  leave  him  time  to  do  much 
of  that. 

"  Loriot,"  he  said,  "  I  am  always  glad  to  see  you." 

The  notary  bowed  to  the  ground. 

"Only,"  continued  the  marquis,  "you  will  permit  me  to 
ask,  won't  you  ?  what  brings  you  here  into  our  desert  at 
half-past  nine  o'clock  of  a  rainy  night.  I  know  that  when 
a  man  has  such  an  umbrella  as  yours  the  sky  above  him  is 
always  blue,  but — " 

The  notary  judged  it  proper  not  to  allow  such  a  joke  to 
be  made  by  a  marquis  without  laughing,  and  murmuring 
"  Ah,  good  !  very  good  !  "  Then,  making  a  direct  answer, 
he  said  :  — 

"I  was  at  the  château  de  la  Logerie  very  late,  having 
been  there  to  carry  some  money  to  Madame  la  baronne  on 
an  order  I  did  not  receive  till  two  in  the  afternoon.     I  was 


MY   OLD    CRONY   LORIOT.  281 

coming  back  on  foot,  as  I  usually  do,  when  I  heard  noises 
of  evil  portent  in  the  forest,  which  confirmed  what  I  already 
knew  of  a  riot  at  Montaigu.  I  feared,  if  I  went  any  farther, 
that  I  might  meet  the  soldiers  of  the  Duc  d'Orléans  ;  and  to 
avoid  that  unpleasantness  I  thought  that  M.  le  marquis 
would  deign  to  let  me  lodge  here  for  the  night." 

At  the  mention  of  la  Logerie  Mary  and  Bertha  raised 
their  heads  like  two  horses  who  hear  from  afar  and  sud- 
denly the  sound  of  the  bugle. 

"  Oh  !  you  have  come  from  la  Logerie,  have  you  ?  "  said 
the  marquis. 

*  Yes,  as  I  have  just  had  the  honor  of  mentioning  to 
Monsieur  le  marquis,"  replied  Maître  Loriot. 

"  Well  !  well  !  well  !  We  have  had  another  visitor  from 
la  Logerie  this  evening." 

"The  young  baron,  perhaps  ?  "  suggested  the  notary. 

"Yes." 

"I  am  looking  for  him." 

"  Loriot,"  said  the  marquis,  "  I  am  astonished  to  hear 
you  —  a  man  whose  principles  I  have  always  considered 
sound  —  to  hear  you  prostituting  a  title  which  you  habit- 
ually respect  by  attaching  it  to  the  name  of  those  Michels." 

As  the  marquis  uttered  this  remark  with  an  air  of  superb 
disdain  Bertha  turned  crimson  and  Mary  turned  pale.  The 
impression  produced  by  his  words  was  lost  upon  the  old 
gentleman,  but  it  did  not  escape  the  little  gray  eye  of  the 
notary.  He  was  about  to  speak  when  Monsieur  de  Souday 
made  a  sign  with  his  hand  that  he  had  not  finished  his 
remarks. 

"And  I  wish  to  know  why  you,  my  old  crony,"  he  con- 
tinued, "  whom  we  have  always  treated  well  and  kindly,  why 
you  think  it  necessary  to  put  forward  a  subterfuge  in  order 
to  enter  my  house." 

"  Monsieur  le  marquis  !  "  stammered  Loriot. 

"You  came  here  to  look  for  young  Michel,  didn't  you? 
That 's  all  very  well,  but  why  lie  about  it  ?  " 

"I  beg  Monsieur  le  marquis  to  accept  my  most  humble 


282  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

excuses.  The  mother  of  the  young  man,  whom  I  have  been 
obliged  to  accept  as  a  client,  being  a  legacy  with  the  practice 
of  my  predecessor,  is  very  anxious.  Her  son  got  out  of  a 
window  on  the  second  story  at  the  risk  of  breaking  his  neck, 
and  in  defiance  of  her  maternal  wishes  he  has  run  away  ; 
consequently  Madame  Michel  requests  me  —  " 

"  Ha  !  ha  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  "  did  he  really  do  that  ?  " 

"  Literally,  Monsieur  le  marquis." 

"  Well,  that  reconciles  me  to  him,  —  not  perhaps  alto- 
gether, but  somewhat." 

"  If  Monsieur  le  marquis  would  indicate  to  me  where  I  am 
likely  to  find  the  young  man,"  said  Loriot,  "  I  could  take 
him  back  to  his  mother." 

"  As  for  that,  the  devil  knows  where  he  has  taken  him- 
self, I  don't  !  Do  you  know,  girls  ?  "  asked  the  marquis, 
turning  to  his  daughters. 

Bertha  and  Mary  both  made  signs  in  the  negative. 

"  You  see,  my  dear  crony,  that  we  can't  be  of  the  least 
use  to  you,"  said  the  marquis.  "But  do  tell  me  why 
mother  Michel  locked  up  her  son." 

"  It  seems,"  replied  the  notary,  "  that  young  Michel, 
hitherto  so  gentle,  and  docile,  and  obedient,  has  fallen  sud- 
denly in  love." 

"  Ah,  ha  !  taken  the  bit  in  his  teeth  ?  I  know  what  that 
is  !  Well,  Maître  Loriot,  if  you  are  called  in  counsel,  do 
you  tell  mother  Michel  to  give  him  his  head  and  keep  a 
light  rein  on  him  ;  that 's  better  than  a  martingale.  He 
strikes  me  as  a  pretty  good  little  devil,  what  I  have  seen 
of  him." 

"An  excellent  heart,  Monsieur  le  marquis;  and  then,  an 
only  son  !  —  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  francs  a  year  !  " 
said  the  notary. 

"  Hum  !  "  exclaimed  the  marquis,  "  if  that 's  all  he  has,  it 
is  little  enough  to  cover  the  villanies  of  the  name  he 
bears." 

"  Father  !  "  said  Bertha,  while  Mary  only  sighed,  "  You 
foraret  the  service  he  did  us  to-night." 


MY   OLD   CRONY   LORIOT.  283 

"Hey!  hey!"  thought  Loriot,  looking  at  Bertha,  "can 
the  baroness  be  right  after  all  ?  It  would  be  a  fine  contract 
to  draw." 

And  he  began  to  add  up  the  fees  he  might  expect  from  a 
marriage  contract  between  Baron  Michel  de  la  Logerie  and 
the  daughter  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday. 

"You  are  right,  my  child,"  said  the  marquis;  "we'll 
leave  Loriot  to  hunt  up  mother  Michel's  lost  lamb,  and  say 
no  more  about  them."  Then,  turning  to  Loriot,  he  added  : 
"Are  you  going  any  further  on  your  quest,  Mr.  Notary  ?  " 

"If  Monsieur  le  marquis  will  deign  to  permit,  I  would 
prefer  —  " 

"Just  now,  you  gave  me,  as  a  pretext  for  staying  here, 
your  dread  of  encountering  the  soldiers,"  interrupted  the 
marquis.  "Are  you  really  afraid  of  them  ?  Heavens  and 
earth,  what 's  the  meaning  of  that  ?  You,  one  of  us,  afraid 
of  soldiers  !  " 

"  I  am  not  afraid,"  replied  Loriot  ;  "  Monsieur  le  marquis 
may  believe  me.  But  those  cursed  Blues  turn  my  stomach  ; 
I  feel  such  an  aversion  for  them  that  after  I  have  seen  even 
one  of  their  uniforms  I  can't  eat  anything  for  twenty -four 
hours." 

"  That  explains  your  leanness  ;  but  the  saddest  part  of  it 
is  that  this  aversion  of  yours  obliges  me  to  turn  you  out  of 
my  house." 

"Monsieur  le  marquis  is  making  fun  of  his  humble 
servant." 

"  Indeed  I  am  not  ;  I  don't  wish  your  death,  that 's  all." 

"  My  death  ?  " 

"  Yes,  if  the  sight  of  'one  soldier  gives  you  twenty -four 
hours  of  inanition,  you  '11  certainly  die  of  starvation  out- 
right if  you  pass  a  whole  night  under  the  same  roof  as  a 
regiment." 

"  A  regiment  ?  " 

"  Yes,  a  regiment.  I  have  invited  a  regiment  to  sup  at 
Souday  to-night  ;  and  the  regard  I  have  for  you  obliges  me 
to  send  you  off,  hot  foot,  at  once.     Only,  be  careful  which 


284  THE    LAST   VENDEE. 

way  you  go  because  those  scamps  the  soldiers  if  they  catch 
you  in  the  fields,  or  rather  in  the  woods,  at  this  time  of 
night  may  take  you  for  what  you  are  not  —  I  mean  to  say, 
for  what  you  are." 

"  What  then  ?  " 

"  What  then  !  why,  they  'd  honor  you  with  a  shot  or  two, 
and  the  muskets  of  M.  le  Duc  d'Orléans  are  loaded  with 
ball,  you  know." 

The  notary  turned  pale  and  stammered  a  few  unintelli- 
gible words. 

"  Decide  ;  you  have  the  choice,  —  death  by  hunger,  or  by 
guns.  You  've  no  time  to  lose  ;  I  hear  the  tramp  of  men  — 
and  there  !  precisely  !  —  that 's  the  general  knocking  at  the 
gate." 

Sure  enough,  the  knocker  resounded  ;  this  time  it  was 
vigorously  handled,  as  became  the  guest  whose  arrival  it 
announced. 

"  In  company  with  Monsieur  le  marquis,"  said  Loriot,  "I 
will  conquer  my  aversion,  invincible  as  it  is." 

"  Good  !  then  take  that  torch  and  go  with  me  to  meet  my 
guests." 

"  Your  guests  ?  Why,  really,  Monsieur  le  marquis,  I  can't 
believe  —  " 

"  Come,  come,  Thomas  Loriot,  you  shall  see  first,  and  be- 
lieve afterwards." 

And  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  taking  a  torch  himself, 
advanced  to  the  portico.  Bertha  and  Mary  followed  him  ; 
Mary  thoughtful,  Bertha  anxious,  —  both  looking  earnestly 
into  the  shadows  of  the  courtyard  to  see  if  they  could  dis- 
cover any  sign  of  the  presence  of  him  they  were  both 
thinking  of. 


THE  GENERAL  EATS  SUPPER.  285 


XXXII. 

THE  GENERAL  EATS  A  SUPPER  WHICH  HAD  NOT  BEEN 
PREPARED  FOR  HIM. 

According  to  the  instructions  of  the  marquis  transmitted 
by  Mary  to  Rosine,  the  gate  was  opened  to  the  soldiers  at 
the  first  rap.  No  sooner  was  this  done  than  they  filed  into 
the  courtyard  and  hastened  to  surround  the  house. 

Just  as  the  old  general  was  about  to  dismount  he  saw  the 
two  torchbearers  on  the  portico,  and  beside  them,  partly  in 
shadow,  partly  in  the  light,  the  two  young  girls.  They  all 
came  toward  him  with  a  gracious,  hospitable  manner  which 
greatly  amazed  him. 

"  Faith  !  general,"  said  the  marquis,  coming  down  the 
last  step,  as  if  to  go  as  far  as  possible  to  meet  the  general. 
"  I  began  to  despair  of  seeing  you,  this  evening  at  least." 

"  You  despaired  of  seeing  me,  Monsieur  le  marquis  !  " 
exclaimed  the  general,  astonished  at  this  exordium. 

"  Yes,  I  despaired  of  seeing  you.  At  what  hour  did  you 
leave  Montaigu,  —  at  seven  ?  " 

"  At  seven  precisely  ?  " 

"  Well,  that 's  just  it  !  I  calculated  that  it  would  take 
you  about  two  hours  to  march  here,  and  I  expected  you  at 
nine  or  half-past,  and  here  it  is  half-past  ten.  I  was  just 
wondering  if  some  accident  could  have  happened  to  deprive 
me  of  the  honor  of  receiving  so  brave  and  gallant  a 
soldier." 

"  Then  you  expected  me,  monsieur  ?  " 

"  Why,  of  course,  I  did.  I  '11  bet  it  was  that  cursed  ford 
at  Pont-Farcy  which  detained  you.     What  an  abominable 


286  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

country  it  is,  general  !  — brooks  that  become  impassible  tor- 
rents from  the  slightest  rain  ;  roads  —  call  them  roads 
indeed  !  I  call  them  bogs  !  How  did  you  get  over  those 
dreadful  springs  of  Baugé  ?  —  a  sea  of  mud  in  which  you  are 
sure  to  flounder  to  the  waist,  and  are  lucky  enough  if  it 
does  n't  come  over  your  head.  But  even  that  is  nothing  to 
the  Viette  des  Biques.  When  I  was  a  young  fellow  and 
a  frantic  hunter  I  used  to  think  twice  before  risking  my- 
self over  it.  Really,  general,  I  feel  very  grateful  for  this 
visit  when  I  think  what  trouble  and  fatigue  it  has  caused 
you." 

The  general  saw  that,  for  the  moment,  he  had  to  do  with 
as  shrewd  a  player  as  himself  ;  and  he  resolved  to  eat  with 
a  good  grace  the  dish  that  the  marquis  served  to  him. 

"  I  beg  you  to  believe,  Monsieur  le  marquis,"  he  replied, 
"  that  I  regret  having  kept  you  waiting,  and  that  the  fault 
of  the  delay  is  none  of  mine.  In  any  case,  I  will  try  to 
profit  by  the  lesson  you  give  me,  and  the  next  time  I  come 
I  will  set  out  in  time  to  defy  fords,  bogs,  and  precipices 
from  hindering  my  arrival  politely  in  season." 

At  this  moment  an  officer  came  up  to  the  general  to  take 
his  orders  about  the  search  to  be  made  of  the  château. 

"  It  is  useless,  my  dear  captain,"  replied  the  general  ; 
"  the  marquis  tells  me  we  have  come  too  late  ;  in  other 
words,  we  have  nothing  to  do  here,  —  the  château  is  all  iu 
order." 

"  But,  my  dear  general  !  "  said  the  marquis,  "  in  order  or 
not,  my  house  is  at  your  disposal  ;  pray  do  exactly  as  you 
like  with  it." 

"  You  offer  it  with  such  good  grace  I  cannot  refuse." 

"  Well,  young  ladies,  what  are  you  about,"  exclaimed  the 
marquis,  "that  you  let  me  keep  these  gentlemen  talking 
here  in  the  rain  ?  Pray  come  in,  general,  come  in,  gentle- 
men ;  there 's  an  excellent  fire  in  the  salon  which  will  dry 
your  clothes  —  which  that  cursed  ford  must  have  soaked 
thoroughly." 

"  How  shall  I  thank  you  for  all  your  considerateness  ?  " 


THE  GENERAL  EATS  SUPPER.  287 

said  the  general,  biting  his  moustache  and  secretly  his 
lips. 

"Oh  !  you  are  a  man  I  am  glad  to  serve,  general,"  replied 
the  marquis,  preceding  the  officers  whom  he  was  lighting, 
the  little  notary  modestly  bringing  up  the  rear  with  the 
other  torch.  "  But  permit  me,"  he  added,  "  to  present  to  you 
my  daughters.  Mesdemoiselles  Bertha  and  Mary  de  Souday." 

"Faith,  marquis,"  said  the  general,  gallantly,  "the  sight 
of  two  such  charming  faces  is  worth  the  risks  of  taking 
cold  at  the  fords,  or  getting  muddy  in  the  bog,  or  even 
breaking  one's  neck  on  the  Viette  des  Biques." 

"  Well,  young  ladies,"  said  the  marquis,  "  make  use.  of 
your  pretty  eyes  to  see  if  supper,  which  has  long  been  wait- 
ing for  these  gentlemen,  intends  to  keep  us  waiting  now." 

"Really,  marquis,"  said  Dermoncourt,  turning  to  his 
officers,  "  we  are  quite  confounded  by  such  kindness  ;  and 
our  gratitude  —  " 

"  Is  amply  relieved  by  the  pleasure  your  visit  affords  us. 
You  can  easily  believe,  general,  that  having  grown  accus- 
tomed to  the  two  pretty  faces  you  compliment  so  charm- 
ingly, and  being  moreover  their  father,  I  should  sometimes 
find  life  in  my  little  castle  a  trifle  insipid  and  monotonous. 
You  can  understand,  therefore,  that  when  an  imp  of  my 
acquaintance  came  and  whispered  in  my  ear,  '  General  Der- 
moncourt started  from  Montaigu  -at  seven  o'clock,  with  his 
staff,  to  pay  you  a  visit,'  I  was  delighted." 

"  Ah  !  it  was  an  imp  who  told  you  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  there  is  always  such  a  being  in  every  cottage  and 
every  castle  in  this  region  of  country.  So  the  prospect  of 
the  pleasant  evening  I  should  owe  to  your  coming,  general, 
gave  me  something  of  my  old  elasticity,  which,  alas  !  I  am 
losing.  I  hurried  my  people  and  put  my  hen-house  and 
larder  under  contribution,  set  my  daughters  in  motion,  and 
kept  my  old  crony  Loriot,  the  Machecoul  notary,  to  do  you 
honor  ;  and  I  have  even,  God  damn  me  !  put  my  own  hand 
in  the  pie,  and  we  have  managed,  among  us,  to  prepare  a 
supper  which  is  ready  for  you,  and  also  for  your  soldiers  — 
for  I  don't  forget  I  was  once  a  soldier  myself." 


288  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Ah  !  you  have  served  in  the  army,  Monsieur  le  mar- 
quis ?  "  said  Dermoncourt. 

"  Perhaps  in  the  same  wars  as  yourself  ;  though,  instead 
of  saying  that  I  served,  I  ought  only  say  that  I  fought." 

"In  this  region  ?  " 

"  Yes,  under  the  orders  of  Charette." 

"Ah  ha!" 

"  I  was  his  aide-de-camp." 

"  Then  this  is  not  the  first  time  we  have  met,  marquis." 

"  Is  that  really  so  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  made  the  campaigns  of  1795  and  1796  in  La 
Vendée." 

"  Ah  !  bravo  !  that  delights  me,"  cried  the  marquis  ; 
"  then  we  can  talk  at  dessert  of  our  youthful  prowess  — 
Ah,  general,"  said  the  old  gentleman,  with  a  certain  melan- 
choly, "  it  is  getting  to  be  a  rare  thing  on  either  side  to  find 
those  who  can  talk  of  the  old  campaigns.  But  here  come 
the  young  ladies  to  tell  us  that  supper  is  ready.  General, 
will  you  give  your  arm  to  one  of  them  ?  the  captain  will 
take  the  other."  Then,  addressing  the  rest  of  the  officers, 
he  said,  "  Gentlemen,  will  you  follow  the  general  into  the 
dining-room  ?  " 

They  sat  down  to  table,  —  the  general  between  Mary  and 
Bertha,  the  marquis  between  two  officers.  Maître  Loriot 
took  the  seat  next  to  Bertha,  intending,  in  the  course  of  the 
meal,  to  get  in  a  word  about  Michel.  He  had  made  up  his 
mind  that,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  the  marriage  contract 
should  be  drawn  in  his  office. 

For  some  minutes  nothing  was  heard  but  the  clatter  of 
plates  and  glasses  ;  all  present  were  silent.  The  officers, 
following  the  example  of  their  general,  accepted  compla- 
cently this  unexpected  termination  of  their  intended  attack. 
The  marquis,  who  usually  dined  at  five  o'clock,  and  was 
therefore  nearly  six  hours  late  in  getting  anything  to  eat, 
was  making  up  to  his  stomach  for  its  lost  time.  Mary  and 
Bertha,  both  of  them  pensive,  were  not  sorry  to  have  an 
excuse  for  their  silent  reflections  in  the  aversion  they  felt 
to  the  tricolor  cockade. 


THE   GENERAL   EATS   SUPPER.  289 

The  general  was  evidently  reflecting  on  some  means  of 
getting  even  with  the  marquis.  He  understood  perfectly 
well  that  Monsieur  de  Souday  had  received  warning  of  his 
approach.  Practised  in  Vendéan  warfare,  he  well  knew  the 
facility  and  rapidity  with  which  news  is  communicated 
from  one  village  to  another.  Surprised  at  first  by  the 
heartiness  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday's  welcome,  he  had 
gradually  recovered  his  coolness  and  returned  to  his  habits 
of  minute  observation.  All  he  saw,  whether  it  was  his 
host's  extreme  attentions,  or  the  profusion  of  the  repast,  far 
too  sumptuous  to  have  been  prepared  for  enemies,  only  con- 
firmed his  suspicions  ;  but,  patient  as  all  good  hunters  of 
men  and  game  should  be,  and  certain  that  if  his  illustrious 
prey  had  taken  flight  (as  he  believed  she  had)  it  would  be 
useless  to  pursue  her  in  the  darkness,  he  resolved  to  post- 
pone his  more  serious  investigations  and  to  let  no  indication 
of  what  was  below  the  surface  escape  him. 

It  was  the  general  who  first  broke  silence. 

"Monsieur  le  marquis,"  he  said,  raising  his  glass,  "the 
choice  of  a  toast  may  be  as  difficult  for  you  as  for  us  ;  but 
there  is  one  that  cannot  be  embarrassing,  and  has,  indeed,  the 
right  to  precede  all  others.  Permit  me  to  drink  to  the 
health  of  the  Demoiselles  de  Souday,  thanking  them  for 
their  share  in  the  courteous  reception  with  which  you  have 
honored  us." 

"  My  sister  and  I  thank  you,  monsieur,"  said  Bertha;  "  and 
we  are  very  glad  to  have  pleased  you  in  accordance  with 
our  father's  wishes." 

"  Which  means,"  said  the  general,  smiling,  "  that  you  are 
only  gracious  to  us  under  orders,  and  that  our  gratitude  for 
your  attentions  is  really  due  to  Monsieur  le  marquis™  Well, 
that 's  all  right  ;  I  like  such  military  frankness,  which 
would  induce  me  to  leave  the  camp  of  your  admirers  and 
enter  that  of  your  friends,  if  I  thought  I  could  be  received 
there  wearing,  as  I  do,  the  tricolor  cockade." 

"  The  praises  you  give  to  my  frankness,  monsieur,"  re- 
plied Bertha,  "  induce  me  to  say  honestly  that  the  colors  you 

VOL.    I. — 19 


290  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

wear  are  not  those  I  like  to  see  upon  my  friends  ;  but,  if 
you  really  wish  for  that  title  I  will  grant  it,  hoping  that  the 
day  may  come  when  you  will  wear  mine." 

"  General,"  said  the  marquis,  scratching  his  ear,  "  your 
remark  is  perfectly  true  ;  what  toast  can  I  give  in  return 
for  your  graceful  compliment  to  my  daughters  without  com- 
promising either  of  us  ?     Have  you  a  wife  ?  " 

The  general  was  determined  to  nonplus  the  marquis. 

"  No,"  he  said. 

"A  sister?" 

"  No." 

"A  mother,  perhaps  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  the  general,  issuing  from  the  ambush  in 
which  he  seemed  to  have  been  awaiting  the  marquis, 
"  France,  our  common  mother." 

"  Ah,  bravo  !  then  I  drink  to  France  !  and  may  the  glory 
and  the  grandeur  that  her  kings  have  given  her  for  the  last 
eight  centuries  long  continue." 

"  And,  permit  me  to  add,  the  half-century  of  liberty 
which  she  owes  to  her  sons." 

"  That  is  not  only  an  addition,  but  a  modification,"  said 
the  marquis.  Then,  after  an  instant's  silence,  he  added, 
"  Faith  !  I  '11  accept  that  toast  !  White  or  tricolor,  France 
is  always  France  !  " 

All  the  guests  touched  glasses,  and  Loriot  himself,  car- 
ried off  his  balance  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  marquis, 
emptied  his  glass. 

Once  launched  in  this  direction,  and  moistened  abund- 
antly, the  conversation  became  so  lively  and  even  vagabond 
that  after  the  supper  was  two  thirds  through,  Mary  and 
Bertha,  thinking  they  had  better  not  wait  till  the  end  of  it, 
rose  from  table  and  passed  without  remark  into  the  salon. 

Maître  Loriot,  who  seemed  to  have  come  there  as  much 
for  the  daughters  as  for  their  father,  rose  a  few  moments 
later  and  followed  them. 


MAÎTRE   LORIOT'S   OtJBIOSITY   IS   NOT   SATISFIED.      291 


XXXTII. 

IN    WHICH     MAÎTRE     LORIOt's     CURIOSITY    IS    NOT    EXACTLY 
SATISFIED. 

Maître  Loriot  profited,  as  we  have  said,  by  the  example 
of  the  young  ladies,  and  left  the  marquis  and  his  guests 
to  evoke  at  ease  their  memories  of  the  "war  of  giants." 
He  rose  from  table  and  followed  the  Demoiselles  de  Souday 
into  the  salon.  There  he  advanced  toward  them,  bending 
almost  double,  and  rubbing  his  hands. 

"Ah  !"  said  Bertha;  "you  seem  to  be  pleased  about 
something,   Monsieur  le  notaire." 

"Mesdemoiselles,"  replied  Maître  Loriot,  in  a  low  voice, 
"I  have  done  my  best  to  second  your  father's  trick.  I 
hope  that  if  need  be  you  will  not  refuse  to  certify  to  the 
coolness  and  self-possession  I  have  shown  under  the 
circumstances." 

"What  trick  do  you  mean,  dear  Monsieur  Loriot,"  said 
Mary,  laughing.  "Neither  Bertha  nor  I  know  what  you 
mean." 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  said  the  notary  ;  "  I  don't  know  any 
more  than  you  know,  but  it  seems  tc  me  that  Monsieur  le 
marquis  must  have  some  serious  and  powerful  reasons  to 
treat  as  old  friends,  and  even  better  than  some  old  friends 
are  treated,  those  hateful  bullies  whom  he  has  admitted  to 
his  table.  The  attentions  he  is  paying  to  those  hirelings 
of  the  usurper  strike  me  as  very  strange,  and  I  fancy  they 
have  a  purpose." 

"What  purpose?  "  asked  Bertha. 

"Well,  that  of  filling  those  fellows'  minds  with  such  a 
sense  of  security  that  they  will  neglect  to  look  after  their 


292  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

own  safety,  and  then  —  taking  advantage  of  their  careless- 
ness, to  make  them  share  the  fate  —  " 

"The  fate?" 

"The  fate  of  —  "  repeated  the  notary. 

"The  fate  of  whom?" 

The  notary  passed  his  hand  across  his  throat. 

"Holof ernes,  perhaps?"  cried  Bertha,  laughing. 

"Exactly,"  said  Maître  Loriot. 

Mary  joined  her  sister  in  the  peals  of  laughter  this 
assurance  called  forth.  The  little  notary's  supposition 
delighted  the  sisters  beyond  measure. 

"  So  you  assign  us  the  part  of  Judith  !  "  cried  Bertha, 
endeavoring  to  check  her  laughter. 

"But,  mesdemoiselles  —  " 

"If  my  father  were  here,  Monsieur  Loriot,  he  might  be 
angry  that  you  suppose  him  capable  of  such  proceedings, 
which  would  be  in  my  opinion,  a  little  too  Biblical.  But 
don't  be  uneasy;  we  will  tell  neither  papa  nor  the  general, 
who  certainly  would  not  be  flattered  at  the  meaning  you 
put  upon  our  attentions." 

"Young  ladies,"  entreated  Loriot,  "forgive  me  if  my 
political  fervor,  my  horror  for  all  the  partisans  of  the 
present  unfortunate  doctrines,  carried  me  rather  too  far." 

"I  forgive  you,  Monsieur  Loriot,"  replied  Bertha,  who, 
having  been,  in  conseqiience  of  her  frank,  decided  nature, 
the  most  suspicious,  felt  that  she  had  the  most  to  pardon, 
—  "I  forgive  you  ;  and  in  order  that  you  may  not  make 
such  mistakes  in  future  I  shall  give  you  the  key-note  of 
the  situation.  You  must  know  that  General  Dermoncourt, 
whom  you  regard  as  Antichrist,  has  merely  come  to  Souday 
to  make  exactly  the  same  search  that  is  made  in  all  the 
neighboring  chûteaus." 

"If  that's  the  case,"  said  the  little  notary,  who  was 
getting  himself  deeper  and  deeper  into  trouble,  "  why  treat 
him  with,  —  yes,  I  will  say  the  word,  —  with  such  luxury 
and  splendor?     The  law  is  precise." 

"The  law!     How  so?" 


MAÎTRE   LORIOT'S   CURIOSITY   IS   NOT   SATISFIED.        293 

"Yes;  it  forbids  all  magistrates  and  civil  and  military 
officers  charged  with  the  execution  of  judicial  authority  to 
seize,  carry  away,  or  appropriate  auy  articles  other  than 
those  named  in  the  warrant.  What  are  these  men  now 
doing  with  the  viands  and  wines  of  all  sorts  which  are  on 
the  table  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday?  They  are  ap-pro-pri- 
ating  them  !  " 

"It  seems  to  me,  my  dear  Monsieur  Loriot,''  said  Mary, 
"  that  my  father  has  the  right  to  invite  whom  he  chooses 
to  his  table." 

"  Even  those  who  come  to  execute  —  to  bring  into  his 
home  —  an  odious  and  tyrannical  power?  Certainly  he 
has  the  right,  mademoiselle;  but  you  will  allow  me  to 
regard  it  as  a  most  unnatural  thing,  and  to  suppose  it  has 
some  secret  cause  or  object." 

"In  other  words,  Monsieur  Loriot,  you  see  a  secret 
which  you  want  to  penetrate." 

"  Oh,  mademoiselle  —  " 

"  Well,  I  '11  confide  it  to  you,  as  well  as  I  can,  my  dear 
Monsieur  Loriot.  I  am  willing  to  trust  you,  if  you,  on 
your  side,  will  tell  me  how  it  happened  that  having  to 
look  for  Monsieur  Michel  de  la  Logerie,  you  came  straight 
to  the  château  de  Souday." 

Bertha  said  the  words  in  a  firm,  incisive  way,  and  the 
notary,  to  whom  they  were  addressed,  heard  them  with  more 
embarrassment  than  was  felt  by  the  lady  who  uttered  them. 

As  for  Mary,  she  came  up  to  her  sister,  slipped  her  arm 
within  Bertha's,  and  resting  her  head  upon  the  hitter's 
shoulder,  awaited,  with  a  curiosity  she  did  not  seek  to 
disguise,  the  answer  of  Maître  Loriot. 

"  Well,  if  you  really  wish  to  know  why,  young  ladies  —  " 

The  notary  made  a  pause,  as  though  expecting  to  be 
encouraged;  and  Bertha  did  encourage  him  with  a  nod. 

"I  came,"  continued  Maître  Loriot,  "because  Madame 
la  Baronne  de  la  Logerie  informed  me  that  the  château  de 
Souday  was  probably  the  place  to  which  her  son  went  on 
taking  flight  from  his  home  " 


294  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"And  on  what  did  Madame  la  Baronne  de  la  Logerie 
base  that  supposition?  "  asked  Bertha,  with  the  same 
questioning  look  and  the  same  firm,   incisive  voice. 

"Mademoiselle,"  replied  the  notary,  more  and  more 
embarrassed,  "  after  what  I  said  to  your  father,  really  I  do 
not  know  whether,  in  spite  of  the  reward  you  promise  to 
my  frankness,  I  have  the  courage  to  say  more." 

"Why  not?"  said  Bertha,  with  the  same  coolness. 
"Shall  I  help  you?  It  is  because  she  thinks,  I  believe 
you  said,  that  the  object  of  Monsieur  Michel's  love  is  at 
Souday." 

"Yes,  mademoiselle,  that  is  just  it." 

"Very  good;  but  what  I  desire  to  know,  and  what  I 
shall  insist  on  knowing,  is  Madame  de  la  Logerie 's  opinion 
of  that  love." 

"Her  opinion  is  not  exactly  favorable,  mademoiselle," 
returned  the  notary;  "that  I  must  admit." 

"That's  a  point  on  which  my  father  and  the  baroness 
will  agree,"  said  Bertha,  laughing. 

"But,"  continued  the  notary,  pointedly,  "Monsieur  Mi- 
chel will  be  of  age  in  a  few  months,  — consequently,  free  as 
to  his  actions,  and  the  master  of  an  immense  fortune." 

"As  to  his  actions,"  said  Bertha,  "so  much  the  better 
for  him." 

"In  what  way,  mademoiselle?"  asked  the  notary, 
maliciously. 

"Why  to  rehabilitate  the  name  he  bears  and  efface  the 
evil  memories  his  father  left  behind  him.  As  to  the  for- 
tune, if  I  were  the  woman  Monsieur  Michel  honored  with 
his  affection,  I  should  advise  him  to  make  such  use  of  it 
that  there  would  soon  be  no  name  in  the  whole  province 
more  honored  than  his." 

"What  use  would  you  advise  him  to  make  of  it?" 
exclaimed  the   notary,    much   astonished. 

"To  return  that  money  to  those  from  whom  they  say  his 
father  got  it,  and  to  make  restitution  to  the  former  pro- 
prietors of  the  national  domain  which  M.  Michel  bought." 


MAÎTRE   LORIOT'S   CURIOSITY   IS   NOT   SATISFIED.        295 

"But  in  that  case,  mademoiselle,  you  would  ruin  the 
man  who  had  the  honor  to  be  in  love  with  you,"  said  the 
little  notary,  quite  bewildered, 

"  What  would  that  matter  if  he  obtained  the  respect  of 
all,  and  the  regard  of  her  who  advised  the  sacrifice?  " 

Just  then  Rosine  appeared  at  the  door  of  the  salon. 

"Mademoiselle,"  she  said,  not  addressing  herself  par- 
ticularly to  either  Mary  or  Bertha,  "will  you  please  come 
here?  " 

Bertha  wanted  to  continue  her  conversation  with  the 
notary.  She  was  eager  for  information  as  to  the  feelings 
Madame  de  la  Logerie  had  against  her;  and,  moreover,  she 
enjoyed  talking,  however  vaguely,  of  projects  which  for 
some  time  past  had  been  the  theme  of  her  meditations. 
So  she  told  Mary  to  go  and  see  what  was  wanted. 

But  Mary,  on  her  side,  was  rather  unwilling  to  leave 
the  salon.  She  was  frightened  to  see  to  what  lengths 
Bertha's  love  had  developed  within  the  last  few  days; 
every  word  her  sister  said  echoed  painfully  in  her  soul. 
She  felt  sure  that  Michel's  love  was  wholly  her  own,  and 
she  thought  with  actual  terror  of  Bertha's  despair  when 
she  should  discover  how  strangely  she  had  deceived  her- 
self. Besides,  in  spite  of  Mary's  immense  affection  for 
her  sister,  love  had  already  poured  into  her  heart  the  little 
dose  of  selfishness  which  always  accompanies  that  emotion, 
and  she  was  quite  joyful,  from  another  point  of  view,  at 
what  she  was  now  hearing.  The  part  which  Bertha  was 
tracing  out  for  the  wife  of  Michel  she  felt  should  be  her 
own.  So  it  happened  that  Bertha  was  obliged  to  ask  her 
for  the  second  time  to  see  what  Rosine  wanted. 

"Go,  dearest,"  she  said,  kissing  Mary's  forehead,  "go; 
and  while  you  are  there  please  give  orders  about  preparing 
Monsieur  Loriot's  room;  for  I  fear,  in  all  this  turmoil,  it 
has  been  forgotten." 

Mary  was  accustomed  to  obey,  and  she  obeyed.  Of  the 
two  sisters,  she  was  by  far  the  most  docile  and  gentle. 
She  found  Rosine  at  the  door. 


1^96  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

"What  do  you  want  of  us?  "  she  asked. 

Rosine  did  not  reply.  Then,  as  if  she  feared  to  be  over- 
heard from  the  dining-room,  where  the  marquis  was  nar- 
rating the  last  day  of  Charette's  life,  she  took  Mary  by 
the  arm  and  drew  her  under  the  staircase  at  the  farther 
end  of  the  vestibule. 

"Mademoiselle,"  she  said,  "he  is  hungry." 

"  He  is  hungry?  "  repeated  Mary. 

"Yes;  he  has  just  told  me  so." 

"Who  is  it  you  are  talking  of?     Who  is  hungry? " 

"He,  the  poor  lad." 

"Who  is  he?" 

"Why,  Monsieur  Michel." 

"Monsieur  Michel  here  !  " 

"Did n't  you  know  it?" 

"No." 

"Two  hours  ago  —  after  Mademoiselle  Bertha  returned 
from  the  chapel,  just  before  the  soldiers  arrived  —  he  came 
to  the  kitchen." 

"Did  n't  he  go  away  with  Petit-Pierre?  " 

"No." 

"And  you  say  he  went  to  the  kitchen?  " 

"Yes;  and  he  was  so  tired,  it  was  quite  pitiful.  '  Mon- 
sieur Michel,'  I  said  like  that,  'why  don't  you  go  into  the 
salon?'  '  My  dear  Rosine,'  said  he,  in  his  gentle  way, 
'  they  did  n't  ask  me.'  Then  he  wanted  to  go  and  sleep  at 
Machecoul,  for  he  said  he  wouldn't  go  back  to  La  Logerie 
for  all  the  world.  It  seems  his  mother  meant  to  take 
him  to  Paris.     So  I  would  n't  let  him  leave  the  house." 

"You  did  quite  right,  Rosine.     Where  is  he  now?" 

"I  put  him  in  the  tower  chamber;  but  as  the  soldiers 
have  taken  the  ground-floor,  we  can't  get  in  there  now 
except  through  the  passage  at  the  end  of  the  hay-loft,  and 
I  came  to  ask  you  for  the  key." 

Mary's  first  thought  (it  was  her  good  thought)  was  to 
tell  her  sister;  but  a  second  thought  succeeded  the  first, 
and  that,  it  must  be  owned,  was  less  generous.     It  was  no 


MAÎTRE   LORIOT'S   CURIOSITY    IS   NOT    SATISFIED.        297 

other  than  to  see  Michel  first  and  alone,  liosine  gave  her 
the  opportunity. 

"I  '11  tell  you  where  the  key  is,"  said  Mary. 

"Oh,  mademoiselle,"  replied  liosine,  "do  come  with 
me.  There  are  so  many  men  about  that  I  don't  like  to  be 
alone,  and  I  should  die  of  fright  to  go  up  there  by  myself; 
whereas  if  you,  the  marquis's  daughter,  were  with  me  they 
would  all  respect  us." 

"But  the  provisions?  " 

"Here  they  are." 

"Where?" 

"In  this  basket." 

"Oh,  very  good;  then  come." 

And  Mary  sprang  up  the  stairs  with  the  agility  of  the 
kids  she  sometimes  hunted  among  the  rocks  in  the  forest 
of  Machecoul. 


298  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 


XXXIV. 

THE    TOWER   CHAMBER. 

When  Mary  reached  the  second  floor  she  stopped  before 
the  room  occupied  by  Jean  Oullier.  The  key  she  wanted 
was  kept  in  that  room. 

Then  she  opened  a  door  which  gave  entrance  from  this 
floor  on  a  winding  stairway  which  led  to  the  upper  portion 
of  the  tower,  where,  preceding  Rosine  whose  basket  hin- 
dered her,  she  continued  her  ascension,  which  was  some- 
what dangerous,  for  the  stairs  of  the  half-abandoned  tower 
had  fallen  into  a  state  of  dilapidation  and  decay.  It  was 
at  the  top  of  this  tower,  in  a  little  chamber  under  the  roof, 
that  Rosine  and  the  cook,  forming  themselves  into  a  com- 
mittee of  deliberation,  had  shut  up  the  young  Baron  Michel 
de  la  Logerie. 

The  intention  of  these  honest  girls  was  excellent;  the 
result  was  in  no  sense  equal  to  their  good-will.  It  would 
be  impossible  to  imagine  a  more  miserable  refuge,  or  one 
where  it  would  be  less  possible  to  obtain  even  a  slight 
repose.  The  room  was,  in  fact,  used  by  Jean  Oullier  to 
store  the  seeds,  tools,  and  other  necessary  articles  for  his 
various  avocations  as  Jack-at-all-trades.  The  walls  were 
literally  palisaded  with  branches  of  beans,  cabbages,  let- 
tuce, onions,  of  diverse  varieties,  all  gone  to  seed  and 
exposed  to  the  air  for  the  purpose  of  ripening  and  drying 
them.  Unfortunately,  these  botanic  specimens  had  ac- 
quired such  a  coating  of  dust,  while  awaiting  the  period 
of  their  return  to  earth,  that  the  least  movement  made  in 
the  narrow  chamber  sent  up  a  cloud  of  leguminous  atoms 
which  affected  the  atmosphere  disagreeably. 


THE    TOWER   CHAMBER.  299 

The  sole  furniture  of  this  room  was  a  wooden  bench, 
which  was  not  a  very  comfortable  seat,  certainly;  and 
Michel,  unable  to  endure  it,  had  betaken  himself  to  a  pile 
of  oats  of  a  rare  species,  which  obtained,  on  account  of 
their  rarity,  a  place  in  this  collection  of  precious  germs. 
He  seated  himself  in  the  midst  of  the  mound,  and  there, 
in  spite  of  some  inconveniencies,  he  found  enough  elasti- 
city to  rest  his  limbs,  which  were  cramped  with  fatigue. 

But  after  a  time  Michel  grew  weary  of  lying  on  this 
movable  and  prickly  sofa.  When  Guerin  threw  him  down 
into  the  brook  a  goodly  quantity  of  mud  became  attached 
to  his  garments,  and  the  dampness  soon  penetrated  to  his 
skin.  His  sta}r  before  the  kitchen  fire  had  been  short,  so 
short  that  the  dampness  now  returned,  more  penetrating 
than  ever.  He  began,  therefore,  to  walk  up  and  down  in 
the  turret-room,  cursing  the  foolish  timidity  to  which  he 
owed  not  only  the  cold,  stiffness,  and  hunger  he  began  to 
feel,  but  also  —  more  dismal  still  —  the  loss  of  Mary's 
presence.  He  scolded  himself  for  not  securing  his  own 
profit  out  of  the  valiant  enterprise  he  had  undertaken,  and 
for  losing  courage  to  end  successfully  an  affair  he  had  so 
well  begun. 

Let  us  hasten  to  say  here,  in  order  that  we  may  not  mis- 
represent our  hero's  character,  that  the  consciousness  of 
his  mistake  did  not  make  him  a  whit  more  courageous, 
and  it  never  for  an  instant  occurred  to  him  to  go  frankly 
to  the  marquis  and  ask  for  hospitality,  —  a  desire  for 
which  had  been  one  of  the  determining  motives  of  his 
flight. 

Meantime  the  soldiers  had  arrived,  and  Michel,  attracted 
by  the  noise  to  the  narrow  casement  of  his  turret-chamber, 
saw  the  Demoiselles  de  Souday,  their  father,  the  general, 
and  his  ofheers,  passing  and  repassing  before  the  bril- 
liantly lighted  windows  of  the  main  building.  It  was 
then  that,  seeing  Rosine  in  the  courtyard  beneath,  he 
asked,  with  all  the  modesty  of  his  character,  for  a  bit  of 
bread,  and  declared  himself  hungry. 


300  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

Hearing,  soon  after,  a  light  step  apparently  approaching 
his  room,  he  began  to  feel  a  lively  satisfaction  under  two 
heads:  first,  he  was  likely  to  get  something  to  eat;  and 
next,  he  should  probably  hear  news  of  Mary. 

"Is  that  you,  Rosine?  "  he  asked,  when  he  heard  a  hand 
endeavoring  to  open  the  door. 

"No,  it  is  not  Eosine;  it  is  I,  Monsieur  Michel,"  said  a 
voice. 

Michel  recognized  it  as  Mary's  voice;  but  he  could  not 
believe  his  ears.     The  voice  continued  :  — 

"Yes,  I,  —  I,  who  am  very  angry  with  you!  " 

As  the  tone  of  the  voice  was  not  in  keeping  with  the 
words,  Michel  was  less  alarmed  than  he  might  have  been. 

"Mademoiselle  Mary!  "  he  cried;  "Mademoiselle  Mary! 
Good  heavens  !  " 

He  leaned  against  the  wall  to  keep  himself  from  falling. 
Meanwhile  the  young  girl  had  opened  the  door. 

"You!"  cried  Michel,  — "you,  Mademoiselle  Mary! 
Oh,   how  happy  I  am  !  " 

"Not  so  happy  as  you  say." 

"  Why  not?  " 

"Because,  as  you  must  admit,  in  the  midst  of  your  hap- 
piness you  are  dying  of  hunger." 

"Ah,  mademoiselle!  who  told  you  that?"  stammered 
Michel,  coloring  to  the  whites  of  his  eyes. 

"Rosine.  Come,  Rosine,  quick!  "  continued  Mary. 
"  Here,  put  your  lantern  on  this  bench,  and  open  the  basket 
at  once;  don't  you  see  that  Monsieur  Michel  is  devouring 
it  with  his  eyes?  " 

These  laughing  words  made  the  young  baron  rather 
ashamed  of  the  vulgar  need  of  food  he  had  expressed  to 
his  foster-sister.  It  came  into  his  head  that  to  seize  the 
basket,  fling  it  out  of  the  window,  at  the  risk  of  brain- 
ing a  soldier,  fall  upon  his  knees,  and  say  to  the  young 
girl  pathetically,  with  both  hands  pressed  to  his  heart, 
"Can  I  think  of  my  stomach  when  my  heart  is  satisfied?" 
would  be  a  rather  gallant  declaration  to  make.    But  Michel 


THE    TOWER   CHAMBER.  301 

might  have  had  such  ideas  in  his  head  for  a  number  of 
consecutive  years  without  ever  bringing  himself  to  act  in 

so  cavalier  a  manner.  He  therefore  allowed  Mary  to  treat 
him  exactly  like  a  foster-brother.  At  her  invitation  he 
went  back  to  his  seat  on  the  oats,  and  found  it  a  ver}' 
enjoyable  thing  to  eat  the  food  cut  for  him  by  the  delicate 
hand  of  the  young  girl. 

"Oh,  what  a  child  you  are!"  said  Mary.  "Why,  after 
doing  so  gallant  an  act  and  rendering  us  a  service  of  such 
importance,  at  the  risk,  too,  of  breaking  your  neck,  — why 
did  n't  you  come  to  my  father,  and  say  to  him,  as  it  was 
so  natural  to  do,  'Monsieur,  I  cannot  go  home  to  my  mother 
to-night;  will  you  keep  me  till  to-morrow  morning?  '  " 

"Oh,  I  never  should  have  dared!  "  cried  Michel,  letting 
his  arms  drop  on  each  side  of  him,  like  a  man  to  whom  an 
impossible  proposal  was  made. 

"Why  not?  "  asked  Mary. 

"Because  your  father  awes  me." 

"My  father!  Why,  he  is  the  kindest  man  in  the  world. 
Besides,  are  you  not  our  friend?  " 

"Oh,  how  good  of  you,  mademoiselle,  to  give  me  that 
title."  Then,  venturing  to  go  a  step  farther,  he  added. 
"Have  I  really  won  it?" 

Mary  colored  slightly.  A  few  days  earlier  she  would 
not  have  hesitated  to  reply  that  Michel  was  indeed  her 
friend,  and  that  she  was  constantly  thinking  of  him.  But 
during  those  few  days  Love  had  strangely  modified  her 
feelings  and  produced  an  instinctive  reticence  which  she 
was  far  from  comprehending.  The  more  she  was  revealed 
to  herself  as  a  woman,  by  sensations  hitherto  unknown  to 
her,  the  more  she  perceived  that  the  manners,  habits,  and 
language  resulting  from  the  education  she  had  received 
were  unusual;  and  with  that  faculty  of  intuition  peculiar 
to  women  she  saw  what  she  lacked  on  the  score  of  reserve, 
and  she  resolved  to  acquire  it  for  the  sake  of  the  emotion 
that  filled  her  soul  and  made  her  feel  the  necessity  of 
dignity. 


302  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

Consequently,  Mary,  who  up  to  this  time  had  never  con- 
cealed a  single  thought,  began  to  see  that  a  young  girl 
must  sometimes,  if  not  lie,  at' least  evade  the  truth;  and 
she  now  put  in  practice  this  new  discovery  in  her  answer 
to  Michel's  question. 

"I  think,"  she  replied,  "that  you  have  done  quite 
enough  to  earn  the  name  of  friend."  Then  without  giving 
him  time  to  return  to  a  subject  on  hazardous  ground,  she 
continued,  "  Come,  give  me  proof  of  the  appetite  you  were 
boasting  of  just  now  by  eating  this  other  wing  of  the 
chicken." 

"  Oh,  mademoiselle,  no  !  "  said  Michel,  artlessly,  "  I  am 
choking  as  it  is." 

"Then  you  must  be  a  very  poor  eater.  Come,  obey;  if 
not,  as  I  am  only  here  to  serve  you,  I  shall  go." 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  Michel,  stretching  out  both  his 
hands,  in  one  of  which  was  a  fork,  in  the  other  a  piece  of 
bread,  —  "  mademoiselle,  you  cannot  be  so  cruel.  Oh  !  if 
you  only  knew  how  sad  and  dismal  I  have  been  here  for 
the  last  two  hours  in  this  utter  solitude  —  " 

"You  were  hungry;  that  explains  it,"  said  Mary, 
laughing. 

"No,  no,  no;  that  was  not  it!  I  could  see  you  from 
here,  going  and  coming  with  all  those  officers." 

"That  was  your  own  fault.  Instead  of  taking  refuge 
like  an  owl  in  this  old  turret,  you  ought  to  have  come  into 
the  salon  and  gone  with  us  to  the  dining-room  and  eaten 
your  supper  sitting,  like  a  Christian,  on  a  proper  chair. 
You  would  have  heard  my  father  and  General  Dermoncourt 
relating  adventures  to  make  your  flesh  creep,  and  you 
would  have  seen  the  old  weasel  Loriot  —  as  my  father 
calls  him  —  eating  his  supper,  which  was  scarcely  less 
alarming." 

"Good  God!  "  cried  Michel. 

"What?"  asked  Mary,  surprised  by  the  sudden  ex- 
clamation. 

"Maître  Loriot,  of  Machecoul?" 


THE   TOWER   CHAMBER.  303 

"  Maître  Loriot,  of  Machecoul,  "  repeated  Mary. 

"My  mother's  notary?  " 

"Ah,  yes,  that 's  true;  so  he  is!  "  said  Mary. 

"Is  he  here?  "  asked  Michel. 

"Yes,  of  course  he  is  here;  and  what  do  you  think  he 
came  for?  "  continued  Mary,   laughing. 

"What?" 

"To  look  for  you." 

"Forme?" 

"Exactly;  sent  by  the  baroness." 

"But,  mademoiselle,"  cried  Michel,  much  alarmed,  "I 
don't  wish  to  go  back  to  La  Logerie." 

"Why  not?" 

"Because,  — well,  because  they  lock  me  up,  they  detain 
me;  they  want  to  keep  me  at  a  distance  from  —  from  my 
friends." 

"Nonsense!    La  Logerie  is  not  so  very  far  from  Souday." 

"No;  but  Paris  is  far  from  Souday,  and  the  baroness 
Avants  to  take  me  to  Paris.  Did  you  tell  that  notary  I  «ras 
here?  " 

"No,  indeed." 

"Oh!  I  thank  you,  mademoiselle." 

"  You  need  not  thank  me,  for  I  did  not  know  it  myself.  " 

"  But  now  that  you  do  know  it  —  " 

Michel  hesitated. 

"Well,  what?" 

"You  must  not  tell  him,  Mademoiselle  Mary,"  said 
Michel,  ashamed  of  his  weakness. 

"Upon  my  word,  Monsieur  Michel,"  replied  Mary,  "you 
must  allow  me  to  say  one  thing." 

"  Say  it,  mademoiselle  ;  say  it  !  " 

"Well,  it  seems  to  me  if  I  were  a  man  Maître  Loriot 
should  not  disturb  me  under  any  circumstances." 

Michel  seemed  to  gather  all  his  strength  in  order  to  take 
a  resolution. 

"You  are  right,"  he  said;  "and  T  will  go  and  tell  him 
that  I  will  not  return  to  La  Logerie," 


304  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

At  this  moment  they  were  startled  by  loud  cries  from 
the  cook,  calling  to  Rosine. 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  they  both  cried,  one  as  frightened  as 
the  other. 

"Do  you  hear  that,  mademoiselle?  "  said  Eosine. 

"Yes." 

"They  want  me." 

"  Oh  !  "  said  Mary,  rising,  and  all  ready  to  flee  away, 
"can  they  know  we  are  here?" 

"  Suppose  they  do,"  said  Rosine;  "  what  does  it  matter?  " 

"  Nothing,  "  said  Mary  ;   "  but  —  " 

"Listen!"  exclaimed  Rosine. 

They  were  silent,  and  the  cook  was  heard  to  go  away. 
Presently  her  voice  was  heard  in  the  garden. 

"Dear  me!  "  said  Rosine;  "there  she  is,  calling  me 
outside." 

And  Rosine  was  for  running  down  at  once. 

"Heavens!  "  cried  Mary;  "don't  leave  me  here  alone." 

"Why,  you  are  not  alone,"  said  Rosine,  naively. 
"Monsieur  Michel  is  here." 

"  Yes,  but  to  get  back  to  the  house,  "  stammered  Mary. 

"Why,  mademoiselle,"  cried  Rosine,  astonished,  "have 
you  suddenly  turned  coward,  —  you  so  brave,  who  are  in 
the  woods  by  night  as  much  as  by  day  !  It  is  n't  a  bit  like 
you." 

"Nevermind;  stay,  Rosine." 

"  Well,  for  all  the  help  I  have  been  to  you  for  the  last 
half-hour  I  might  as  well  go." 

"Very  true;  but  that 's  not  what  I  want  of  you." 

"What  do  you  want?" 

"Well,  don't  you  see?  " 

"What?" 

"Why,  that  this  unfortunate  boy  can't  pass  the  night 
here,  in  this  room." 

"  Then  where  can  he  pass  it?  "  asked  Rosine. 

"I  don't  know;  but  we  must  find  him  another  room." 

"Without  telling  the  marquis?  " 


THE    TOWER   CHAMBER.  305 

"Oh,  true!  my  father  doesn't  know  he  is  here.  Good 
heavens!  what's  to  be  done?  Ah,  Monsieur  Michel,  it  is 
all  your  fault!  " 

"Mademoiselle,  I  am  ready  to  leave  the  house  if  you 
demand  it." 

"What  makes  you  say  that?"  cried  Mary,  quickly. 
"No;  on  the  contrary,   stay." 

"  Mademoiselle  Mary,  an  idea  !  "  interrupted  Rosine. 

"  What  is  it?  " 

"Suppose  I  go  and  ask  Mademoiselle  Bertha  what  we 
had  better  do?  " 

"No,"  replied  Mary,  with  an  eagerness  which  surprised 
herself;  "no,  that's  useless!  I  will  ask  her  myself  pres- 
ently when  I  go  down,  after  Monsieur  Michel  has  finished 
his  wretched  little  supper." 

"Very  good;  then  I  '11  go  now,"  said  Rosine. 

Mary  dared  not  keep  her  longer.  Rosine  disappeared, 
leaving  the  two  young  people  entirely  alone. 


20 


306  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 


XXXV. 

WHICH   ENDS   QUITE    OTHERWISE    THAN    AS    MARY   EXPECTED. 

The  little  room  was  lighted  only  by  tlie  lantern,  the  rays 
of  which  were  concentrated  on  the  door,  leaving  in  dark- 
ness, or  at  any  rate  in  obscurity,  the  rest  of  the  room,  — 
if,  indeed,  the  word  "  room  "  can  be  applied  to  the  sort  of 
pigeon-loft  in  which  the  two  young  people  were  now 
alone. 

Michel  was  still  sitting  on  the  heap  of  oats.  Mary  was 
kneeling  on  the  ground,  looking  into  the  basket  with  more 
embarrassment  than  interest,  ostensibly  in  search  of  some 
dainty  which  might  still  be  forthcoming  to  conclude  the 
repast. 

But  so  many  things  had  now  happened  that  Michel  was 
no  longer  hungry.  His  head  was  resting  on  his  hand  and 
his  elbow  on  his  knee.  He  was  watching  with  a  lover's 
eye  the  soft,  sweet  face  before  him,  now  foreshortened  by 
the  girl's  attitude  in  a  way  to  double  the  charm  of  her 
delicate  features.  He  breathed  in  with  delight  the  waves 
of  perfumed  air  that  came  to  him  from  the  long  fair  curls, 
which  the  breeze  entering  through  the  window  gently 
raised  and  wafted  to  his  lips.  At  that  contact,  that  per- 
fume, that  sight,  his  blood  circulated  more  rapidly  in  his 
veins.  He  heard  the  arteries  of  his  temples  beating;  he 
felt  a  quiver  running  through  every  limb  until  it  reached 
his  brain.  Under  the  influence  of  sensations  so  new  to 
him  the  young  man  felt  his  soul  animated  by  unknown 
aspirations;  he  learned  to  will. 

What  he  willed  he  felt  to  the  depths  of  his  soul;  he 
willed  to  find  some  way  of  telling  Mary  that  he  loved  her. 


WHICH   ENDS    OTHERWISE    THAN    MARY    EXPECTED.       307 

He  sought  the  best;  but  with  all  his  seeking  lie  found  no 
better  way  than  the  simple  means  of  taking  her  hand  and 
carrying  it  to  his  lips.  Suddenly  he  did  it,  without  really 
knowing  what  he  did. 

"Monsieur  Michel!  Monsieur  Michel!  "  cried  Mary, 
more  astonished  than  angry;  "what  are  you  doing?" 

The  young  girl  rose  quickly.  Michel  saw  that  he  had 
gone  too  far  and  must  now  go  farther  still  and  say  all.  It 
was  he  who  now  took  Mary's  posture;  that  is,  he  fell  upon 
his  knees  and  again  took  the  hand  which  had  escaped  him. 
It  is  true  that  hand  made  no  effort  to  avoid  his  clasp. 

"Oh!  can  I  have  offended  you?"  he  cried.  "If  that 
were  so  I  should  be  most  unhappy,  and  ask  pardon  of  you 
on  my  knees." 

"Monsieur  Michel!  "  began  the  young  girl,  without 
knowing  what  she  meant  to  say. 

But  the  baron,  afraid  that  the  little  hand  might  be 
snatched  away  from  him,  folded  it  in  both  his  own;  and 
as,  on  his  side,  he  did  not  very  well  know  what  he  was 
saying,  he  continued  :  — 

"  If  I  have  abused  your  goodness,  mademoiselle,  tell  me, 
—  I  implore  you,  —  tell  me  that  you  are  not  angry  with  me." 

"I  will  say  so,  monsieur,  when  you  rise,"  said  Mary, 
making  a  feeble  effort  to  withdraw  her  hand.  But  the 
effort  was  so  feeble  it  had  no  other  result  than  to  show 
Michel  its  captivity  was  not  altogether  forced  upon  her. 

"No,"  said  the  young  baron,  under  the  influence  of  a 
growing  ardor  caused  by  the  change  from  hope  into  some- 
thing that  was  almost  certainty,  —  "  no,  leave  me  at  your 
feet.  Oh  !  if  you  only  knew  how  man}''  times,  since  I  have 
known  you,  I  have  dreamed  of  the  moment  when  I  should 
kneel  thus  at  your  feet;  if  you  knew  how  that  dream, 
mere  dream  as  it  was,  gave  me  the  sweetest  sensations, 
the  most  delightful  agony,  you  would  let  me  enjoy  the 
happiness  which  is  at  this  moment  a  reality." 

"But,  Monsieur  Michel,"  replied  Mary,  in  a  voice  of 
increasing   emotion   as   she   spoke,    for   she   felt  she  had 


308  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

reached  the  moment  when  she  could  have  no  further  doubt 
as  to  the  nature  of  his  affection  for  her, — "Monsieur 
Michel,  we  should  not  kneel  except  to  God  and  to  the 
saints." 

"I  know  not  to  whom  we  ought  to  kneel,  nor  why  I 
kneel  to  you,"  said  the  young  man.  "What  I  feel  is  far 
beyond  all  that  I  ever  felt  before, —  greater  than  my  affec- 
tion for  my  mother,  so  great  that  I  do  not  know  where  to 
place  or  what  to  call  the  sentiment  that  leads  me  to  adore 
you.  It  is  something  which  belongs  to  the  reverence  you 
speak  of,  which  we  offer  to  God  and  to  the  saints.  For 
me  you  are  the  whole  creation  ;  in  adoring  you  it  seems  to 
me  that  I  adore  the  universe  itself." 

"Oh,  monsieur,  cease  to  say  such  things!  Michel!  my 
friend!" 

"No,  no,  leave  me  as  I  am;  suffer  me  to  consecrate 
myself  to  you  with  an  absolute  devotion.  Alas!  I  feel, 
—  believe  me,  I  am  not  mistaken,  —  I  feel,  since  I  have 
seen  men  who  are  truly  men,  that  the  devotion  of  a  timid , 
feeble  child,  which,  alas!  I  am,  is  but  a  paltry  thing  at 
best;  and  yet  it  seems  to  me  that  the  joy  of  suffering,  of 
shedding  my  blood,  of  dying,  if  need  be,  for  you,  must  be 
so  infinite  that  the  hope  of  winning  it  would  give  me  the 
strength  and  courage  that  I  lack." 

"Why  talk  of  suffering  and  of  death?"  said  Mary,  in 
her  gentle  voice.  "Do  you  think  death  and  suffering 
absolutely  necessary  to  prove  an  affection  true?" 

"Why  do  I  speak  of  them,  Mademoiselle  Mary?  Why 
do  I  call  them  to  my  aid?  Because  I  dare  not  hope  for 
another  happiness;  because  to  live  happy,  calm,  and  peace- 
ful beside  you,  to  enjoy  your  tenderness,  in  short,  to  make 
you  my  wife,  seems  to  me  a  dream  beyond  all  human  hope. 
I  cannot  picture  to  my  mind  that  such  a  dream  should  ever 
be  reality  for  me." 

"  Poor  child  !  "  said  Mary,  in  a  voice  of  at  least  as  much 
compassion  as  tenderness;  "then  you  do  indeed  love  me 
truly?  " 


WHICH   ENDS   OTHERWISE    THAN    MARY    EXPECTED.       309 

"Oh,  Mademoiselle  Mary,  why  must  I  tell  you?  Why 
should  I  repeat  it?  Do  you  not  see  it  with  your  eyes  and 
with  your  heart?  Pass  your  hand  across  my  forehead 
bathed  in  sweat,  place  it  on  my  heart  that  is  beating 
wildly;  see  how  my  body  trembles,  and  can  you  doubt  1 
love  you?  " 

The  feverish  excitement,  which  suddenly  transformed 
the  young  man  into  another  being,  was  communicated  to 
Mary;  she  was  no  less  agitated,  no  less  trembling  than 
himself.  She  forgot  all,  — the  hatred  of  her  father  for  all 
that  bore  the  name  of  Michel,  the  repugnance  of  Madame 
de  la  Logerie  toward  her  family,  even  the  delusions 
Bertha  cherished  of  Michel's  love  to  herself,  delusions 
which  Mary  had  so  many  limes  determined  to  respect. 
The  native  warmth  and  ardor  of  her  vigorous  and  primi- 
tive nature  gained  an  ascendency  over  the  reserve  she  had 
for  some  time  thought  it  proper  to  assume.  She  was  on 
the  point  of  yielding  wholly  to  the  tenderness  of  her 
heart  and  of  replying  to  that  passionate  love  by  a  love 
even,  perhaps,  more  passionate,  when  a  slight  noise  at  the 
door  caused  her  to  turn  her  head. 

There  stood  Bertha,  erect  and  motionless,  on  the  thresh- 
old. The  eye  of  the  lantern,  as  we  have  said,  was  turned 
toward  the  door,  so  that  the  light  was  concentrated  on 
Bertha's  face.  Mary  could  therefore  see  plainly  how 
white  her  sister  was,  and  also  how  pain  and  anger  were 
gathering  upon  that  frowning  brow  and  -behind  those  lips 
so  violently  contracted.  She  was  so  terrified  by  the  unex- 
pected and  almost  menacing  apparition  that  she  pushed 
away  the  young  man,  whose  hand  had  not  left  hers,  and 
went  up  to  her  sister. 

But  Bertha,  who  had  now  entered  the  turret,  did  not  stop 
to  meet  Mary.  Pushing  her  aside  with  her  hand  as  though 
she  were  an  inert  object,  she  went  straight  to  Michel. 

"Monsieur,"  she  said,  in  a  ringing  voice,  "has  my  sister 
not  told  you  that  Monsieur  Loriot,  your  mother's  notary, 
is  in  the  salon  and  wishes  to  speak  to  you?  " 


310  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

Michel  muttered  a  few  words. 

"You  will  find  him  in  the  salon,"  continued  Bertha, 
in  the  tone  of  voice  she  would  have  used  in  giving  an 
order. 

Michel,  cast  suddenly  back  into  his  usual  timidity  and 
all  his  terrors,  stood  up  in  a  confused  and  vacillating  man- 
ner without  saying  a  word,  and  turned  to  leave  the  room, 
like  a  child  detected  in  a  fault  who  obeys  without  having 
the  courage  to  excuse  himself. 

Mary  took  the  lantern  to  light  him  down,  but  Bertha 
snatched  it  from  her  hand  and  put  it  into  that  of  the  young 
man,  making  him  a  sign  to  go. 

"But  you,  mademoiselle?  "  he  ventured  to  say. 

"We  know  the  house,"  replied  Bertha.  Then  stamping 
her  foot  impatiently,  as  she  noticed  that  Michel's  eyes 
were  seeking  those  of  Mary,  "Go,  go!  I  tell  you;  go!" 
she  exclaimed. 

The  young  man  disappeared,  leaving  the  two  young 
girls  without  other  light  than  the  pale  gleam  of  a  half- 
veiled  moon,  which  entered  the  turret  through  the  narrow 
casement. 

Left  alone  with  her  sister,  Mary  expected  to  be  severely 
blamed  for  the  impropriety  of  her  conduct  in  permitting 
such  a  tête-à-tête,  —  an  impropriety  of  which  she  herself 
was  now  fully  aware.  In  this  she  was  mistaken.  As 
soon  as  Michel  had  disappeared  down  the  spiral  stairway, 
and  Bertha,  with  her  ears  strained  to  the  door,  had  heard 
him  leave  the  tower,  she  seized  her  sister's  hand,  and 
pressing  it  with  a  force  which  proved  the  violence  of  her 
feelings,  asked  in  a  choking  voice:  — 

"What  was  he  saying  to  you  on  his  knees?  " 

For  all  answer  Mary  threw  herself  on  her  sister's  neck, 
and  in  spite  of  Bertha's  efforts  to  repulse  her  she  wound 
her  arms  about  her  and  kissed  her,  moistening  Bertha's 
face  with  the  tears  that  flowed  from  her  own  eyes. 

"Why  are  you  angry  with  me,  dear  sister?  "  she  said. 

"It  is  not  being  angry  with  you,  Mary,  to  ask  what  a 


WHICH  ENDS  OTHERWISE  THAN  MARY  EXPECTED.   311 

young  man  whom  I  find  kneeling  at  your  feet  was  saying 
to  you." 

"But  this  is  not  the  way  you  usually  speak  to  me." 

"What  matters  it  how  I  usually  speak  to  you?  What  I 
wish  and  what  I  exact  is  that  you  answer  my  question." 

"Bertha!  Bertha!" 

"Come,  answer  me;  speak!  What  was  he  saying?  I 
ask  you  what  he  said?"  cried  the  girl,  harshly,  shaking 
her  sister  so  violently  by  the  arm  that  Mary  gave  a  cry 
and  sank  to  the  floor  as  if  about  to  faint. 

The  cry  recalled  Bertha  to  her  natural  feeling.  This 
impetuous  and  violent  nature,  fundamentally  kind,  softened 
at  the  expression  of  the  pain  and  distress  she  had  wrung 
from  her  sister.  She  did  not  let  her  fall  to  the  ground, 
but  took  her  in  her  arms,  raised  her  as  though  she  were  a 
child,  and  laid  her  on  the  bench,  holding  her  all  the  while 
tightly  embraced.  Then  she  covered  her  with  kisses, 
and  a  few  tears,  gushing  from  her  eyes  like  sparks  from 
a  brazier,  dropped  upon  Mary's  cheek.  Bertha  wept  as 
Maria  Theresa  wept,  —  her  tears,  instead  of  flowing,  burst 
forth  like  lightning. 

(-Poor  little  thing  !  poor  little  thing  !  "  she  said,  speak- 
ing to  her  sister  as  if  to  a  child  she  had  chanced  to  injure; 
"forgive  me!  I  have  hurt  yon,  and,  worse  still,  I  have 
grieved  you;  oh,  forgive  me!"  Then,  gathering  herself 
together,  she  repeated,  "  Forgive  me  !  It  is  my  fault.  I 
ought  to  have  opened  my  heart  to  you  before  letting  you 
see  that  the  strange  love  I  feel  for  that  man  —  that  child," 
she  added  with  a  touch  of  scorn  —  "  has  such  power  over 
me  that  it  makes  me  jealous  of  one  whom  I  love  better 
than  all  the  world,  better  than  life  itself,  better  than  I 
love  him,  —  jealous  of  you!  Ah!  if  you  only  knew,  my 
poor  Mary,  the  misery  this  senseless  love,  which  I  know 
to  be  beneath  me,  has  already  brought  upon  me  !  If 
you  knew  the  struggles  I  have  gone  through  to  subdue  it  ! 
how  bitterly  I  deplore  my  weakness  !  There  is  nothing 
in  him  of  all  I  respect,  nothing  of  what  I  love,  —  neither 


312  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

distinction  of  race,  nor  religious  faith,  nor  ardor,  noi 
vigor,  nor  strength,  nor  courage;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  all, 
I  love  him!  I  loved  him  the  first  moment  that  I  saw  him. 
I  love  him  so  much  that  sometimes,  breathless,  frantic, 
bathed  in  perspiration,  and  suffering  almost  unspeakable 
anguish,  I  have  cried  aloud  like  one  possessed,  'My  God  ! 
make  me  die,  but  let  him  love  me  !  '  For  the  last  few 
months  —  ever  since,  to  my  misfortune,  we  met  him  —  the 
whought  of  this  man  has  never  left  me  for  an  instant.  I 
feel  for  him  some  strange  emotion,  which  must  be  that  a 
woman  feels  to  a  lover,  biit  which  is  really  far  more  like 
the  affection  of  a  mother  for  her  child.  Each  clay  that 
passes,  my  life  is  more  bound  up  in  him;  I  put  not  only 
my  thoughts,  but  all  my  dreams,  my  hopes  on  him.  Ah, 
Mary!  Mary  !  just  now  I  was  asking  you  to  pardon  me; 
but  now  I  say  to  you,  pity  me,  sister  !  Oh,  my  sister, 
have  pity  upon  me  !  " 

And  Bertha,,  quite  beside  herself,  clasped  her  sister 
frantically  in  her  arms. 

Poor  Mary  had  listened,  trembling,  to  this  explosion  of 
an  almost  savage  passion,  such  as  the  powerful  and  self- 
willed  nature  of  Bertha  alone  could  feel.  Each  cry,  each 
word,  each  sentence  tore  to  shreds  the  rosy  vapors  which 
a  few  moments  earlier  she  had  seen  on  the  horizon.  Her 
sister's  impetuous  voice  swept  those  fragments  from  her 
sight,  as  the  gust  of  a  rising  tempest  sweeps  the  light, 
fleecy  clouds  before  it.  Her  grief  and  bewilderment  was 
such  during  Bertha's  last  words  that  the  latter's  silence 
alone  warned  her  she  was  expected  to  reply.  She  made  a 
great  effort  over  herself,  striving  to  check  her  sobs. 

"Oh,  sister,"  she  said,  "my  heart  is  breaking;  my  grief 
is  all  the  greater  because  what  has  happened  to-night  is 
partly  my  fault." 

"No,  no  !  "  cried  Bertha,  with  her  accustomed  violence. 
"  It  was  I  who  ought  to  have  looked  to  see  what  became  of 
him  when  we  left  the  chapel.  But,"  she  continued,  with 
that  pertinacity  of  ideas  which  characterizes  persons  who 


WHICH    ENDS    OTHERWISE    THAN    MARY    EXPECTED.      313 

are  violently  in  love,  "what  was  lie  saying  to  you?  Why 
was  he  kneeling  at  your  feet?  " 

Mary  felt  that  Bertha  shuddered  as  she  asked  the  ques- 
tion; she  herself  trembled  violently  at  the  thought  of  what 
she  had  to  answer.  It  seemed  to  her  that  each  word  by 
which  she  was  forced  to  explain  the  truth  to  Bertha  would 
scorch  her  lips  as  they  left  her  heart. 

"Come,  come!"  said  Bertha,  weeping,  her  tears  having 
more  effect  on  Mary  than  her  anger, — "Come,  tell  me, 
dear  sister;  have  pity  on  me!  The  suspeuse  is  worse  a 
hundred-fold  than  any  pain.  Tell  me,  tell  me;  did  he 
speak  to  you  of  love?  " 

Mary  could  not  lie;  or  rather,  self-devotion  had  not  yet 
taught  her  to  do  so. 

"Yes,"  she  said. 

"  Oh,  my  God  !  my  God  !  "  cried  Bertha,  tearing  herself 
from  her  sister's  breast  and  falling,  with  outstretched 
arms,  her  face  against  the  wall. 

There  was  such  a  tone  of  absolute  despair  in  the  cry 
that  Mary  was  terrified.  She  forgot  Michel,  she  forgot 
her  love;  she  forgot  all  except  her  sister.  The  sacrifice 
before  which  her  heart  had  quailed  at  the  moment  when 
she  first  heard  that  Bertha  loved  Michel,  she  now  made 
valiantly,  with  sublime  self-abnegation;  for  she  smiled, 
with  a  breaking  heart. 

"Foolish  girl  that  you  are!"  she  cried,  springing  to 
Bertha's  neck;  "let  me  finish  what  I  have  to  say." 

"Did  you  not  tell  me  that  he  spoke  of  love?"  replied 
the  suffering  creature. 

"Yes;  but  I  did  not  tell  you  whom  he  loves." 

"  Mary  !  Mary  !  have  pity  on  my  heart  !  " 

"Bertha!  dear  Bertha!" 

"Was  it  of  me  he  spoke?  " 

Mary  had  not  the  strength  to  reply  in  words  ;  she  made 
a  sign  of  acquiescence  with  her  head. 

Bertha  breathed  heavily,  passed  her  hand  several  times 
over   her   burning    forehead.      The    shock   had    been   too 


314  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

violent  to  allow  her  to  recover  instantly  her  normal 
condition. 

"Mary,"  she  said,  "what  you  have  just  told  me  seems  so 
unlikely,  so  impossible,  that  you  must  swear  it.  Swear  to 
me  —  "     She  hesitated. 

"I  will  swear  what  you  will,  sister,"  said  Mary,  who  was 
eager  herself  to  put  some  insurmountable  barrier  between 
her  heart  and  her  love. 

"Swear  to  me  that  Michel  does  not  love  you,  and  that 
you  do  not  love  him."  She  laid  her  hand  on  her  sister's 
shoulder.     "Swear  it  by  our  mother's  grave." 

"I  swear,  by  the  grave  of  our  mother,"  said  Mary,  reso- 
lutely, "that  I  will  never  marry  Michel." 

She  threw  herself  into  her  sister's  arms,  seeking  compen- 
sation for  her  sacrifice  in  the  caresses  the  latter  gave  her. 
If  the  room  had  been  less  dark  Bertha  might  have  seen  on 
Mary's  features  the  anguish  that  oath  had  cost  her.  As  it 
was,  it  restored  all  Bertha's  calmness.  She  sighed  gently, 
as  though  her  heart  were  lightened  of  a  heavy  weight. 

"Thank  you!"  she  said;  "oh,  thank  you!  thank  you! 
Now  let  us  return  to  the  salon." 

But,  half-way  down,  Mary  made  an  excuse  to  go  to  her 
room.     There  she  locked  herself  in  to  pray  and  weep. 

The  company  had  not  yet  left  the  supper-table.  As 
Bertha  crossed  the  vestibule  to  reach  the  salon  she  heard 
bursts  of  laughter  from  the  guests. 

When  she  entered  the  salon  Monsieur  Loriot  was  argu- 
ing with  the  young  baron,  endeavoring  to  persuade  him 
that  it  was  his  interest  as  well  as  his  duty  to  return  to  La 
Logerie.  But  the  negative  silence  of  the  young  man  was 
so  eloquent  that  the  notary  presently  found  himself  at  the 
end  of  his  arguments.  It  is  true,  however,  that  he  had 
been  talking  for  half  an  hour. 

Michel  was  probably  not  less  embarrassed  than  the 
notary  himself,  and  he  welcomed  Bertha  as  a  battalion 
formed  in  a  hollow  square  and  attacked  on  all  sides  wel- 
comes an  auxiliary  who  will  strengthen  its  defence.     He 


WHICH  ENDS  OTHERWISE  THAN  MARY  EXPECTED.   315 

sprang  to  meet  her  with  an  eagerness  which  owed  as  much 
to  his  present  difficulty  as  to  the  closing  scene  of  his 
interview  with  Mary. 

To  his  great  surprise,  Bertha,  incapable  of  concealing 
for  a  moment  what  she  was  feeling,  stretched  out  her  hand 
and  pressed  his  with  effusion.  She  mistook  the  meaning 
of  the  young  man's  eager  advance,  and  from  being  content 
she  became  radiant. 

Michel,  who  expected  quite  another  reception,  did  not 
feel  at  his  ease.  However,  he  immediately  recovered 
himself  so  far  as  to  say  to  Loriot  :  — 

"You  will  tell  my  mother,  monsieur,  that  a  man  of  prin- 
ciple finds  actual  duties  in  his  political  opinions,  and  that 
I  decide  to  die,  if  need  be,  in  accomplishing  mine." 

Poor  boy  !  he  was  confounding  love  with  duty. 


316  THE   LAST   VENDÉE 


XXXVI. 


BLUE    AND    WHITE. 


(t  was  almost  two  in  the  morning  when  the  Marquis  de 
Bouday  proposed  to  his  guests  to  return  to  the  salon. 
They  left  the  table  in  that  satisfied  condition  which  always 
follows  a  plenteous  repast  if  the  master  of  the  house  is  in 
good-humor,  the  guests  hungry,  and  the  topics  of  conver- 
sation interesting  enough  to  fill  the  spare  moments  of  the 
chief  occupation. 

In  proposing  to  adjourn  to  the  salon  the  marquis  had 
probably  no  other  idea  than  change  of  atmosphere  ;  for  as 
he  rose  he  ordered  Rosine  and  the  cook  to  follow  him  with 
ihe  liqueurs,  and  to  array  the  bottles  with  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  glasses  on  a  table  in  the  salon. 

Then,  humming  the  great  air  in  "  Richard,  Cœur-dè- 
Lion,"  and  paying  no  heed  to  the  fact  that  the  general 
replied  by  a  verse  from  the  "Marseillaise,"  which  the 
noble  panels  of  the  castle  of  Souday  heard,  no  doubt,  for 
the  first  time,  the  old  gentleman,  having  filled  all  glasses, 
was  preparing  to  resume  a  very  interesting  controversy  as 
to  the  treaty  of  Jaunaye,  which  the  general  insisted  had 
only  sixteen  articles,  when  the  latter,  pointing  to  the 
clock,  called  his  attention  to  the  time  of  night. 

Dermoncourt  said,  laughing,  that  he  suspected  the  mar- 
quis of  intending  to  paralyze  his  enemies  by  the  delights 
of  a  new  Capua;  and  the  marquis,  accepting  the  joke  with 
infinite  tact  and  good-will,  hastened  to  yield  to  his  guests' 
wishes  and  took  them  at  onee  to  the  bedrooms  assigned  to 
them,  after  which  he  betook  himself  to  his  own. 


BLUE   AND    WHITE.  317 

The  Marquis  de  Souday,  excited  by  the  warlike  inclina- 
tions of  his  mind  and  by  the  conversation  which  enlivened 
the  evening,  dreamed  of  combats.  He  was  fighting  a 
battle,  compared  to  which  those  of  Torfou,  Laval,  and 
Sanmur  were  child's  play;  he  was  in  the  act  of  advancing 
under  a  shower  of  shot  and  shell,  leading  his  division  to 
the  assault  of  a  redoubt,  and  planting  the  white  iiag  in  the 
midst  of  the  enemy's  intrenchments,  when  a  rapping  at 
his  door  interrupted  his  exploits. 

In  the  dozing  condition  which  preceded  his  full  awaken- 
ing, the  dream  continued,  and  the  noise  at  his  door  was 
the  roar  of  cannon.  Then,  little  by  little,  the  clouds 
rolled  away  from  his  brain,  the  worthy  old  gentleman 
opened  his  eyes,  and,  instead  of  a  battlefield  covered  with 
broken  gun-carriages,  gasping  horses,  and  dead  bodies, 
over  which  he  thought  he  was  leaping,  he  found  himself 
lying  on  his  narrow  camp  bed  of  painted  wood  draped  with 
modest  white  curtains  edged  with  red. 

The  knocking  was  renewed. 

"  Come  in  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  rubbing  his  eyes.  "  Ha  ! 
bless  me,  general,  you've  come  just  in  time,"  he  cried; 
"two  minutes  more,  and  you  were  dead." 

"How  so?" 

"Yes,  by  a  sword-thrust  I  was  just  putting  through 
you." 

"By  way  of  retaliation,  my  good  friend,"  said  the 
general,  holding  out  his  hand. 

"That's  how  I  take  it.  But  I  see  you  are  looking 
rather  puzzled  by  my  poor  room  ;  its  shabbiness  surprises 
you.  Yes,  there  is  some  difference  between  this  bare,  for- 
lorn place,  with  its  horsehair  chairs  and  carpetless  floor, 
and  the  fine  apartments  of  your  Parisian  lords.  But  I 
can't  help  it.  I  spent  one  third  of  my  life  in  camps  and 
another  third  in  penury,  and  this  little  cot  with  its  thin 
mattress  seems  to  me  luxury  enough  for  my  old  age.  But 
what  in  the  world  brings  you  here  at  this  early  hour, 
general?     It  is  hardly  light  yet." 


318  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"I  came  to  bid  you  good-bye,  my  kind  host,"  replied  the 
general. 

"Already?  Ah,  see  what  life  is  !  I  must  tell  you  now 
that  only  yesterday  I  had  all  sorts  of  prejudices  against 
you  before  your  arrival." 

"  Had  you?     And  yet  you  welcomed  me  most  cordially." 

"Bah!"  said  the  marquis,  laughing;  "you've  been  in 
Egypt.  Did  you  never  receive  a  few  shots  from  the  midst 
of  a  cool  and  pleasant  oasis?  " 

"  Bless  me,  yes  !  The  Arabs  regard  an  oasis  as  the  best 
of  ambuscades." 

"Well,  I  was  something  of  an  Arab  last  night;  and  I 
say  my  mea,  culpa,  regretting  it  all  the  more  because  I  am 
really  and  truly  sorry  you  leave  me  so  soon." 

"  Is  it  because  there  is  still  an  unexplored  corner  of  your 
oasis  you  want  me  to  see?" 

"  No  ;  it  is  because  your  frankness,  loyalty,  and  the  com- 
munity of  dangers  we  have  shared  (in  opposite  camps) 
inspired  me  — ■  I  scarcely  know  why,  but  instantly  —  with 
a  sincere  and  deep  regard  for  you." 

"On  your  word  as  a  gentleman?  " 

"On  my  word  as  a  gentleman  and  a  soldier." 

"Well,'  then,  I  offer  you  my  friendship  in  return,  my 
dear  enemy,"  replied  Dermoncourt.  "I  expected  to  find 
an  old  émigré,  powdered  like  a  white  frost,  stiff  and 
haughty,  and  larded  with  antediluvian  prejudices  —  " 

"And  you  've  found  out  that  a  man  may  wear  powder 
and  have  no  prejudices,  —  is  that  it,  general?  " 

"  I  found  a  frank  and  loyal  heart  and  an  amiable,  — 
bah!  let 's  say  the  word  openly,  — jovial  nature,  and  this 
with  exquisite  manners,  which  might  seem  to  exclude  all 
that  ;  in  short,  you  've  seduced  an  old  veteran,  who  is 
heartily  yours." 

"Well,  it  gives  me  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  to  hear  you 
say  so.     Come,  stay  one  more  day  with  me  !  " 

"  Impossible  !  " 

"Well,  I  have  nothing  to  say  against  that  decisive  word; 


BLUE    AND    WHITE.  319 

but  make  me  a  promise  that  you  will  pay  me  a  visit  after 
the  peace,  if  we  are  both  of  us  still  living." 

"After  the  peace  !  "  cried  the  general,  laughing.  "  Axe 
we  at  war?  " 

"We  are  between  peace  and  war." 

"Yes,  the  happy  medium." 

"Well,  let  us  say  after  the  happy  medium.  Promise 
you  will  come   and  see  me  then?" 

"Yes,  I  give  you  my  word." 

"And  I  shall  hold  you  to  it." 

"But  come,  let  us  talk  seriously,"  said  the  general,  taking 
a  chair  and  sitting  down  at  the  foot  of  the  old  emigre's  bed. 

"I  am  willing,"  replied  the  latter,  "for  once  in  a  way." 

"  You  love  hunting?  " 

"Passionately." 

"What  kind?" 

"All  kinds." 

"But  there  must  be  one  kind  you  prefer?" 

"  Yes,  boar-hunting.  That  reminds  me  most  of  hunting 
the  Blues." 

"Thanks." 

"Boars  and  Blues,  — they  both  charge  alike." 

"What  do  you  say  to  fox-hunting?  " 

"Peuh!  "  exclaimed  the  marquis,  sticking  out  his  under- 
lip  like  a  prince  of  the  House  of  Austria. 

"Well,  it  is  a  fine  sport,"  said  the  general. 

"I  leave  that  to  Jean  Oullier,  who  has  wonderful  tact 
and  patience  in  watching  a  covert." 

"He  is  good  at  watching  other  game  than  foxes,  your 
Jean  Oullier,"  remarked  the  general. 

"Yes,  yes;  he  's  clever  at  all  game,  no  doubt." 

"Marquis,  I  wish  you  would  take  a  fancy  to  fox- 
hunting." 

"Why?" 

"Because  England  is  the  land  for  it;  and  I  have  a  fancy 
that  the  air  of  England  would  be  very  good  just  now  for 
you  and  your  young  ladies." 


320  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

"Goodness!  "  said  the  marquis,  sitting  up  in  bed. 

"Yes,  I  have  the  honor  to  tell  you  so,  my  dear  host." 

"Which  means  that  you  are  advising  me  to  emigrate? 
No,  thank  you." 

"Do  you  call  an  agreeable  little  trip  emigration?  " 

"  My  dear  general,  those  little  trips,  I  know  what  they 
are,  —  worse  than  a  journey  round  the  world  ;  you  know 
when  they  begin,  but  nobody  knows  when  they  '11  end. 
And,  besides,  there  is  one  thing  —  you  will  hardly,  perhaps, 
believe  it  —  " 

"What  is  that?" 

"You  saw  yesterday,  I  may  say  this  morning,  that  in 
spite  of  my  age  I  have  a  very  tolerable  appetite  ;  and  I  can 
certify  that  I  never  had  an  indigestion  in  my  life.  I  can 
eat  anything  without  being  made  uncomfortable." 

"Well?" 

"Well,  that  devilish  London  fog,  I  never  could  digest 
it.     Is  n't  that  curious?  " 

"Very  good;  then  go  to  Italy,  Spain,  Switzerland, 
wherever  you  please,  but  don't  stay  at  Souday.  Leave 
Machecoul;    leave  La  Vendée." 

"Ha!  ha!  ha!" 

"Yes,  yes." 

"Can  it  be  that  I  am  compromised?"  said  the  marquis, 
half  to  himself,  and  rubbing  his  hands  cheerfully. 

"If  you  are  not  now,  you  will  be  soon." 

"  At  last  !  "  cried  the  old  gentleman,  joyously. 

"No  joking,"  said  the  general,  becoming  serious.  "  If  I 
listened  to  my  duty  only,  my  dear  marquis,  you  would  find 
two  sentries  at  your  door  and  a  sub-lieutenant  in  the  chair 
where  I  am  now  sitting." 

"  Hey  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  a  shade  more  serious. 

"Yes,  upon  my  word,  that's  the  state  of  things.  But 
I  can  understand  how  a  man  of  your  age,  accustomed  as 
you  are  to  an  active  life  in  the  free  air  of  the  forests, 
would  suifer  cooped  up  in  a  prison  where  the  civil  authori- 
ties would  probably  put  you;  and  I  give  you  a  proof  of  my 


BLIrF,    AND    WHITE.  32  I 

sympathetic  friendship  in  what  T  said  just  new.  though  in 
doing  so  I  am,  in  a  measure,  compromising  with  my  strict 
duty." 

"But  suppose  you  are  blamed  for  it,  general?  " 

"Pooh  !  do  yon  suppose  I  can't  find  excuses  enough?  \ 
senile  old  man,  worn-out,  half-imbecile,  who  tried  to  stop 
the  column  on  its  march  —  " 

"Of  whom  arc  you  speaking,  pray?  " 

"Why,  you,  of  course." 

"la  senile  old  man,  worn-out,  half-imbecile!"  cried 
the  marquis,  sticking  one  muscular  leg  out  of  bed.  "I  'm 
sure  I  don't  know,  general,  why  I  don't  unhook  those 
swords  on  the  wall  and  stake  onr  breakfast  on  the  first 
blood,  as  we  did  when  I  was  a  lad  and  a  page  forty-five 
3'ears  ago." 

"Come,  come,  old  child!  "  cried  Dermoncourt;  "you  are 
so  bent  on  proving  I  have  made  a  mistake  that  I  shall  have, 
to  call  in  the  soldiers  after  all." 

And  the  general  pretended  to  rise. 

"No,  no,"  said  the  marquis;  "no,  damn  it!  I  am  senile, 
worn-out,  half -imbecile,  wholly  imbecile,  —  anything  you 
like,  in  short." 

"Very  good;  that  's  all  right." 

"But  will  you  tell  me  how  and  by  whom  I  am,  or  shall 
be,  compromised?  " 

"  In  the  first  place,  your  servant,  Jean  Oullier  > —  " 

"Yes." 

"  The  fox  man  —  " 

"I  understand." 

"Your  servant,  Jean  Oullier, — a  thing  I  neglected  to 
tell  you  last  night,  supposing  that  you  knew  as  much  about 
it  as  I  did,  —  your  man,  Jean  Oullier,  at  the  head  of  a  lot 
of  seditious  rioters,  attempted  to  stop  the  column  which 
was  ordered  to  surround  the  château  de  Souday.  In 
attempting  this  he  brought  about  several  fights,  in  which 
we  lost  three  men  killed,  not  counting  one  whom  1  myself 
did  justice  on.  and  who  belongs,  I  think,  in  these  parts." 

VOL-    I.—  *■ 


322  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

"What  was  his  name?" 

"François  Tinguy." 

"Hush!  general,  don't  mention  it  here,  for  pity's  sake. 
His  sister  lives  in  this  house,  — the  young  girl  who  waited 
on  you  at  table  last  night,  —  and  her  father  is  only  just 
buried." 

"  Ah,  these  civil  wars  !  the  devil  take  them  !  "  said  the 
general. 

"And  yet  they  are  the  only  logical  wars." 

"Maybe.  However,  I  captured  your  Jean  Oullier,  and 
he  got  away." 

"  He  did  well,  —  you  must  own  that  ?  " 

"Yes;  but  if  he  falls  into  my  grip  again  —  " 

"Oh,  there's  no  danger  of  that;  once  warned,  I'll 
answer  for  him." 

"So  much  the  better,  for  I  shouldn't  be  indulgent  to 
him.  I  have  n't  talked  of  the  great  war  with  him,  as  I 
have  with  you." 

"But  he  fought  through  it,  though,  and  bravely,  too." 

"Reason  the  more;  second  offence." 

"But,  general,"  said  the  marquis,  "I  can't  see,  so  far, 
how  the  conduct  of  my  keeper  can  be  twisted  into  a  crime 
of  mine." 

"Wait,  and  you  will  see.  You  said  last  night  that  imps 
came  and  told  you  all  I  did  between  seven  and  ten  o'clock 
that  evening." 

"Yes." 

"Well,  I  have  imps,  too,  and  they  are  every  bit  as  good 
as  yours." 

"I  doubt  it." 

"They  have  told  me  all  that  happened  in  your  castle 
yesterday." 

"Go  on,"  said  the  marquis,  incredulously;  "I  'm 
listening." 

"On  the  previous  evening  two  persons  came  to  stay  at 
the  château  de  Souday." 

"  Good  !  you  are  better  than  your  word.     You  promised 


BLUE    AND    WHITE.  323 

to  tell  me  what  happened  yesterday,  and  now  you  begin 
with  the  day  before  yesterday." 

"These  two  persons  were  a  man  and  a  woman." 

The  marquis  shook  his  head,  negatively. 

"So  be  it;  call  them  two  men,  though  one  of  them  had 
nothing  but  the  clothes  of  our  sex."' 

The  marquis  said  nothing,  and  the  general  continued: 

"Of  these  two  personages,  one,  the  smaller,  spent  the 
whole  day  at  the  castle;  the  other  rode  about  the  neighbor- 
hood, and  gave  rendezvous  that  evening  at  Souday  to  a 
number  of  gentlemen.  If  I  were  indiscreet  I  would  tell 
you  their  names  ;  but  I  will  only  mention  that  of  the  gen- 
tleman who  summoned  them,  —  namely,  the  Comte  de 
Bonneville." 

The  marquis  made  no  reply.  He  must  either  acknowl- 
edge or  lie. 

"What  next?"  he  said. 

"  These  gentlemen  arrived  at  Souday,  one  after  the  other. 
They  discussed  various  matters,  the  most  calming  of  which 
was  certainly  not  the  glory,  prosperity,  and  duration  of 
the  government  of  July." 

"  My  dear  general,  admit  that  you  are  not  one  whit  more 
in  love  than  I  with  your  government  of  July,  though  you 
serve  it." 

"  What 's  that  you  are  saying?  " 

"Eh  ?  good  God  !  I  'm  saying  that  you  are  a  republican, 
blue,  dark-blue;  and  a  true  dark-blue  is  a  fast  color." 

"That 's  not  the  question." 

"  What  is  it  then?  " 

"I  am  talking  of  the  strangers  who  assembled  in  this 
house  last  night  between  eight  and  nine  o'clock." 

"Well,  suppose  I  did  receive  a  few  neighbors,  suppose 
I  even  welcomed  two  strangers,  where  \s  the  crime,  gen- 
eral? I've  got  the  Code  at  my  fingers'  ends, — unless, 
indeed,  the  old  revolutionary  law  against  suspected  persons 
is  revived." 

"There  is  no  crime  in  neighbors  visiting  you;  but  there 


324  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

is  crime  when  those  neighbors  assemble  for  a  conference 
in  which  an  uprising  and  resort  to  arms  is  discussed." 

"How  can  that  be  proved?  " 

"By  the  presence  of  the  two  strangers." 

"  Pooh  !  " 

"Most  certainly;  for  the  smaller  and  fairer  of  the 
strangers,  the  one  who,  being  fair,  wore  a  black  wig  to  dis- 
guise herself,  was  no  less  a  person  than  the  Princess 
Marie-Caroline,  whom  you  call  regent  of  the  kingdom,  — 
her  Royal  Highness  Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Berry,  who 
is  now  pleased  to  call  herself  Petit-Pierre." 

The  marquis  bounded  in  his  bed.  The  general  was 
better  informed  than  he,  and  what  he  was  now  told  entered 
his  mind  like  a  flash  of  light.  He  could  hardly  contain 
himself  for  joy  at  the  thought  that  he  had  received  Madame 
la  Duchesse  de  Berry  under  his  roof;  but,  unhappily,  as 
joy  is  never  perfect  in  this  world,  he  was  forced  to  repress 
his  satisfaction. 

"Go  on,"  he  said;  "what  next  ?" 

"Well,  the  next  is  that  just  as  you  had  reached  the 
most  interesting  part  of  the  discussion,  a  young  man, 
whom  one  would  scarcely  expect  to  find  in  your  camp, 
came  and  warned  you  that  I  and  my  troops  were  on  our 
way  to  the  château.  And  then  you,  Monsieur  le  marquis 
(you  won't  deny  this,  I  am  sure),  you  proposed  to  resist; 
but  the  contrary  was  decided  on.  Mademoiselle,  your 
daughter,  the  dark  one  —  " 

"Bertha." 

"  Mademoiselle  Bertha  took  a  light.  She  left  the  room, 
and  every  one  present,  except  you,  Monsieur  le  marquis, 
who  probably  set  about  preparing  for  the  new  guests 
whom  Heaven  was  sending  you,  —  every  one  present  fol- 
lowed her.  She  crossed  the  courtyard  and  went  to  the 
chapel;  there  she  opened  the  door,  passed  in  first,  and 
went  straight  to  the  altar.  Pushing  a  spring  hidden  in 
the  left  forepaw  of  the  lamb  carved  on  the  front  of  the 
altar,  she  tried  to  open  a  trap-door.     The  spring,  which 


BLUE    AND    WHITE.  325 

had  probably  not  been  used  for  some  time,  resisted.  Then 
she  took  the  bell  used  for  the  mass,  the  handle  of  which 
is  of  wood,  and  pressed  it  on  the  button.  The  panel 
instantly  yielded,  and  opened  the  way  to  a  staircase  lead- 
ing to  the  vaults.  Mademoiselle  Bertha  then  took  two 
wax-tapers  from  the  altar,  lighted  them,  and  gave  them  to 
two  of  the  persons  who  accompanied  her.  Then,  your 
guests  having  gone  down  into  the  vault,  she  closed  the 
panel  behind  them,  and  returned,  as  did  another  person, 
who  did  not  immediately  enter  the  house,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, wandered  about  the  park  for  some  time.  As  for  the 
fugitives,  when  they  reached  the  farther  end  of  the  sub- 
terranean passage,  which  opens,  you  know,  among  the 
ruins  of  the  old  château  that  I  see  from  here,  they  had 
some  difficulty  in  forcing  their  way  through  the  piles  of 
stones  that  cover  the  ground.  One  of  them  actually  fell. 
However,  they  managed  to  reach  the  covered  way  which 
skirts  the  park  wall;  there  they  stopped  to  deliberate. 
Three  took  the  road  from  Nantes  to  Machecoul,  two  fol- 
lowed the  crossroad  which  leads  to  Lege,  and  the  sixth 
and  seventh  doubled  themselves,  —  I  should  rather  say, 
made  themselves   into  one  —  " 

"Look  here!  is  this  a  fairy  tale  you  are  telling  me, 
general?  " 

"Wait,  wait!  You  interrupt  me  at  the  most  interesting 
part  of  all.  I  was  telling  you  that  the  sixth  and  seventh 
doubled  up;  that  is,  the  larger  took  the  smaller  on  his 
back  and  went  to  the  little  brook  that  runs  into  the  great 
rivulet  flowing  round  the  base  of  the  Viette  des  Biques. 
Now  as  they  are  the  ones  I  prefer  among  your  company,  I 
shall  set  my  dogs  of  war  on  them." 

"But,  my  dear  general,"  cried  the  Marquis  de  Souday, 
"I  do  assure  you  all  this  exists  only  in  your  imagination." 

"Come,  come,  my  old  enemy!  You  are  Master  of 
Wolves,  are  not  you?  " 

"Yes." 

"Well,  when  you  see  the  print  of  a  young  boar's  paw 


326  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

sharply  defined  in  soft  earth,  —  a  clear  trail  as  you  call  it, 
—  would  you  let  any  one  persuade  you  into  thinking  it  was 
only  the  ghost  of  a  tusker?  Well,  marquis,  that  trail,  I 
have  seen  it,  or  rather,  I  should  say,  I  have  read  it." 

"The  devil  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  turning  in  his  bed  with 
the  admiring  curiosity  of  an  amateur  ;  "then  I  wish  you  'd 
just  tell  me  how  you  did  it." 

"Willingly,"  replied  the  general.  "But  we  have  still  a 
good  half-hour  before  us.  Order  up  a  pâté  and  a  bottle  of 
wine,  and  I  '11  tell  you  the  rest  between  two  mouthfuls." 

"On  one  condition." 

"And  that  is?" 

"  That  I  may  share  the  meal." 

"At  this  early  hour?  " 

"Real  appetites  don't  carry  a  watch." 

The  marquis  jumped  out  of  bed,  put  on  his  flannel 
trousers,  slipped  his  feet  into  his  slippers,  rang,  ordered 
up  a  breakfast,  covered  a  table,  and  sat  down  before  the 
general  with  an  interrogating  air." 

The  general,  put  to  the  test  of  proving  his  words,  began, 
as  he  said,  between  two  mouthfuls.  He  was  a  good  talker, 
and  a  better  eater  than  even  the  marquis. 


HOW  spiders'  webs  are  dangerous.  32 Y 


XXXVII. 

WHICH     SHOWS     THAT     IT     IS     NOT     FOR    FI.TTCS     ONLY    THAT 
spiders'  WEBS   ARE  DANGEROUS. 

"You  know,  my  dear  marquis,"  began  the  general,  by  way 
of  exordium,  "that  I  don't  inquire  into  any  of  your  secrets. 
I  am  so  perfectly  sure,  so  profoundly  convinced  that  every- 
thing happened  precisely  as  I  tell  you,  that  I  '11  excuse 
you  from  telling  me  that  I  am  mistaken  or  not  mistaken. 
All  I  want  to  do  is  to  prove  to  you,  as  a  matter  of  self- 
respect,  that  we  have  as  good  a  nose  for  a  scent  in  our 
camp  as  you  have  in  your  forest,  —  a  small  satisfaction  of 
vanity  which  I  am  bent  on  getting,  that 's  all." 

"Go. on,  go  on  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  as  impatient  as  if 
Jean  Oullier  had  come  to  tell  him  on  a  fine  snowy  day 
that  he  had  roused  a  wolf. 

"We'll  begin  with  the  beginning.  I  knew  that  M.  le 
Comte  de  Bonneville  had  arrived  at  your  house  the  night 
before  last,  accompanied  by  a  little  peasant,  who  had  all 
the  appearance  of  being  a  woman  in  disguise,  and  whom 
we  suspect  to  be  Madame.  But  this  is  only  a  report  of 
spies;  it  doesn't  figure  in  my  own  inventory,"  added  the 
general. 

"I  should  hope  not;  pah  !"  said  the  marquis. 

"But  when  I  arrived  here  in  person,  as  we  military 
fellows  say  in  our  bulletin  French,  without  being,  I  must 
assure  you,  at  all  misled  by  the  extreme  politeness  which 
you  lavished  upon  us,  I  at  once  remarked  two  things.'' 

"What  were  they?" 

"First,  that  out  of  ten  places  laid  at  the  supper-table, 
five  had  napkins  rolled  up,  evidently  belonging  to  certain 


328  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

regular  guests;  which  fact,  in  case  of  a  trial,  my  dear 
marquis  —  don't  forget  this  —  would  be  an  eminently 
extenuating  circumstance." 

"Why  so?" 

"Because  if  you  had  known  the  rank  and  quality  of 
your  guests  you  would  hardly  have  allowed  them  to  roll 
their  napkins  like  ordinary  country  neighbors,  would  you? 
The  linen  closets  of  Souday  can't  be  so  short  of  napkins 
that  Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Berry  could  n't  have  a  clean 
oue  for  every  meal.  I  am  therefore  inclined  to  believe 
that  the  blonde  lady  disguised  in  the  black  wig  was  noth- 
ing more  to  your  mind  than  a  dark  young  lad." 

"  Go  on,  go  on  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  biting  his  lips  at 
this  revelation  of  a  perspicacity  so  far  exceediug  his  own. 

"I  intend  to  go  on,"  said  the  general.  "So,  as  I  say, 
I  noticed  five  rolled  napkins,  which  proved  that  the  supper, 
or  dinner,  was  not  so  entirely  prepared  for  us  as  you  tried 
to  make  me  believe,  and  that  you  simply  gave  us  the 
places  of  Monsieur  de  Bonneville  and  his  companion  and 
others,  who  had  judged  it  best  not  to  wait  for  our  arrival." 

"Now  for  your  second  observation?  "  said  the  marquis. 

"Mademoiselle  Bertha,  whom  I  suppose  and  believe  to 
be  a  very  neat  young  lady,  was,  when  you  did  me  the 
honor  to  present  me  to  her,  singularly  covered  with  cob- 
webs ;  they  were  even  in  her  beautiful  hair.  " 

"Well?" 

"Well,  certain  as  I  was  that  she  had  not  chosen  that 
style  of  adornment  out  of  coquetry,  I  looked  about  this 
morning  for  a  part  of  the  château  that  was  well  supplied 
with  the  toil  of  those  interesting  insects,  the  spiders," 

" And  you  discovered  —  ?" 

"  Faith  !  what  I  discovered  does  n't  redound  to  the  honor 
of  your  religious  sentiments,  my  dear  marquis,  or,  at  any 
rate,  to  your  practice  of  them;  for  it  was  precisely  across 
the  doorway  of  your  chapel  that  I  found  a  dozen  spiders 
working  with  unimaginable  zeal  to  repair  the  damage  done 
last  night  to  their  webs,  —  a  zeal  no  doubt  inspired  by  the 


HOW  spiders'  webs  are  dangerous.  329 

belief  that  the  opening  of  the  door  where  they  had  fixed 
their  homes  was  only  an  accident  not  likely  to  occur 
again." 

"  You  must  allow,  my  dear  general,  that  all  these  indica- 
tions are  somewhat  vague." 

"Yes,  but  when  your  hounds  turn  their  noses  to  the 
wind  and  strain  at  the  leash,  that  is  nothing  more  than 
a  vague  indication,  is  it?  And  yet  on  that  indication  yon 
beat  the  woods  with  care,  and  very  great  care,  too.  " 

"Certainly,"  said  the  marquis. 

"Well,  that's  my  way  also.  Then,  on  your  paths 
(where,  by  the  bye,  gravel  is  essentially  lacking),  I  have 
discovered  some  very  significant  tracks." 

"Steps  of  men  and  women?"  exclaimed  the  marquis. 
"Pooh!  they  are  everywhere." 

"No,  there  are  not  everywhere  steps  crowded  together 
and  going  in  one  direction,  according  to  what  I  suppose  to 
be  the  number  of  actors  on  the  scene, . —  steps ,  too,  of 
persons  who  were  not  walking,  but  running  together." 

"  But  how  in  the  world  could  you  tell  that  those  persons 
were  running?  " 

"Why,  marquis,  that 's  the  A  B  C  of  the  business." 

"Tell  me,  quick  !" 

"Because  their  footmarks  are  more  from  the  toes  than 
the  heels,  and  the  earth  is  pushed  backward.  Is  n't  that 
the  way  to  tell,  my  dear  Master  of  Wolves?  " 

"Right,"  said  the  marquis,  with  the  air  of  a  connoisseur; 
"quite  right.     What  next?  " 

"Next?" 

"Yes." 

"I  examined  the  footprints;  there  were  men's  steps  of 
various  sizes  and  shapes,  boots,  shoes,  and  hob-nail  soles. 
Then  in  the  midst  of  all  these  masculine  feet  what  did  1 
see  but  the  print  of  a  woman's  foot,  slender  and  arched, 
Cinderella's  foot,  — afoot  to  put  all  the  Andalusian  women 
to  shame  from  Cordova  to  Cadiz;  and  that,  too,  in  spite  of 
the  heavy  nailed  shoes  which  contained  it." 


330  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Well,  well!  skip  that." 

"Skip  it!  why?" 

"Because,  if  you  say  another  word  you'll  be  in  love 
with  that  delicate  foot  in  a  hobnailed  shoe." 

"The  truth  is,  I  would  give  anything  to  hold  it.  Per- 
haps I  shall.  It  was  on  the  steps  of  the  chapel  and  on  the 
pavement  within  it  that  these  traces  were  most  observable  ; 
mud  had  left  its  own  marks  on  the  polished  floor.  I  also 
found,  near  the  altar,  droppings  from  wax-tapers  close 
to  a  long,  thin  footprint,  which  I  would  swear  to  be 
Mademoiselle  Bertha's  ;  and  as  other  droppings  were  close 
to  the  outside  of  the  trap-door,  I  concluded  that  your 
daughter  held  the  light  in  her  left  hand,  while  she  put  the 
key  with  her  right  into  the  lock.  However,  without  this 
last  proof,  the  cobwebs  —  in  fragments  at  the  door,  and 
tangled  in  her  hair  —  proved  to  me  conclusively  that  it  was 
she  who  aided  the  escape." 

"Very  well;  continue." 

"The  rest  is  hardly  worth  telling.  The  lamb's  paw  was 
broken,  and  left  exposed  a  small  steel  button  which  worked 
a  spring;  therefore  I  had  no  merit  in  that  discovery.  It 
resisted  my  efforts  as  it  did  those  of  Mademoiselle  Bertha, 
who,  by  the  bye,  scratched  her  finger  and  drew  blood, 
leaving  a  little  fresh  trace  of  it  on  the  carved  wood.  Like 
her,  I  looked  for  some  hard  thing  to  push  in  the  little 
button,  and  like  her  again,  I  spied  the  wooden  handle  of 
the  bell,  which  retained  not  only  the  marks  of  the  pres- 
sure of  the  night  before  but  also  a  little  trace  of  blood." 

"Bravo  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  evidently  beginning  to 
take  a  double  interest  in  the  narration. 

"So,  as  you  will  readily  believe,"  continued  Dermon- 
court,  "  I  went  down  into  the  vault.  The  footprints  of  the 
fugitives  were  perfectly  distinct  on  the  damp,  sandy  soil. 
One  of  the  party  fell  as  they  went  through  the  ruins;  I 
know  this  because  I  saw  a  thick  tuft  of  nettles  bruised 
and  beaten  down,  which  we  may  be  sure,  considering  the 
unamiable  nature  of  that  plant,  was  not  done  intentionally. 


HOW  spiders'  webs  are  dangerous.  331 

In  a  corner  of  the  ruins,  opposite  to  the  door,  stones  had 
been  moved,  as  if  to  facilitate  the  passage  of  some  delicate 
person.  Among  the  nettles  growing  beside  the  wall  I 
found  the  two  tapers,  thrown  away  as  soon  as  the  party 
reached  the  open  air.  Finally,  and  in  conclusion,  I  found 
footsteps  in  the  road,  and  then,  as  they  separated  there,  I 
was  able  to  class  them  in  the  manner  I  have  already 
described  to  you." 

"No,  no;  that 's  not  the  conclusion." 

"Not  the  conclusion?  yes,  it  is." 

"No;  who  told  you  that  one  of  these  persons  took  another 
on  his  back?  " 

"Ah,  marquis,  you  want  to  catch  me  tripping  in  discern- 
ment. The  pretty  little  foot  in  the  hobnailed  shoe,  —  that 
charming  foot  that  captivates  me  so  much  that  I  have 
neither  peace  nor  rest  till  I  have  overtaken  it,  that  deli- 
cate little  foot,  no  longer  than  a  child's  nor  wider  than 
my  two  fingers,  —  well,  I  saw  it  in  the  vaults,  also  in  the 
covered  way  behind  the  ruins,  and  at  the  place  where  they 
all  stopped  and  deliberated  before  they  parted.  Then, 
suddenly,  close  to  a  huge  stone,  which  the  rain  must 
usually  keep  clean,  but  which,  on  the  contrary,  I  now 
found  covered  with  mud,  those  dainty  footsteps  disap- 
peared. From  that  moment,  like  the  hippogriffs  who  no 
longer  exist  in  our  days,  Monsieur  de  Bonneville,  I  pre- 
sume, took  his  companion  on  his  back.  The  footprints  of 
the  said  Monsieur  de  Bonneville  became  suddenly  heavier; 
they  were  no  longer  those  of  a  lively,  active  youth,  such 
as  you  and  I  were  at  his  age,  marquis.  Don't  you  remem- 
ber how  the  wild-sows  when  with  young  make  heavier 
tracks,  and  their  hoof-marks,  instead  of  just  pricking  the 
earth,  are  placed  flat  with  the  two  points  separate?  Well, 
from  the  stone  I  spoke  of,  M.  de  Bonneville's  footsteps 
grew  heavier  in  the  same  way." 

"But  you  have  forgotten  something,  general." 

"I  think  not." 

"Oh !  I  sha'n't  let  you  off  yet.     What  makes  you  think 


OÔ2  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

that  Monsieur  de  Bonneville  spent  the  day  riding  about  to 
summon  my  neighbors  to  council?  " 

"You  told  me  yourself  you  had  not  gone  out." 

"Well?" 

"  Well,  your  horse,  the  one  you  always  ride,  —  as  that 
pretty  little  wench  who  took  my  bridle  told  me,  —  your 
favorite  horse,  which  I  saw  in  the  stable  when  I  went  to 
make  sure  that  my  own  Bucephalus  had  his  provender, 
was  covered  with  mud  to  the  withers.  Now,  some  one 
had  ridden  that  horse,  and  you  would  never  have  lent 
him  to  any  one  for  whom  you  did  not  feel  some  special 
consideration." 

"  Good  !     Now  another  question." 

"Certainly;  I  am  here  to  answer  questions." 

"  What  makes  you  think  that  Monsieur  de  Bonneville's 
companion  is  the  august  personage  you  named  just  now?" 

"Partly  because  she  is  evidently  made  to  pass  first, 
before  others,  and  the  stones  are  moved  out  of  her  way." 

"  Can  you  tell  by  a  mere  footprint  whether  the  person 
who  made  it  is  fair  or  dark?  " 

"No;  but  I  can  find  it  out  in  another  way." 

"How?  This  shall  be  my  last  question;  and  if  you 
answer  it  —  " 

"If  I  answer  it,  what?  " 

"Nothing.     Goon." 

"Well,  my  dear  marquis,  you  were  so  good  as  to  give 
me  the  bedroom  occupied  the  night  before  by  Monsieur  de 
Bonneville's  companion." 

"Yes,  I  did  so;  what  of  it?  " 

"Well,  here  is  a  pretty  little  tortoise-shell  comb,  which 
I  found  at  the  foot  of  the  bed.  You  must  admit,  my  dear 
marquis,  that  it  is  too  dainty  and  coquettish  to  belong  to  a 
peasant  lad.  Besides,  it  contained,  and  still  contains,  as 
you  may  see,  some  long  meshes  of  light  brown  hair,  not  at 
all  of  the  golden  shade  that  adorns  your  younger  daugh- 
ter's head,  —  the  only  blond  head  in  your  house." 

"  General  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  bounding  from  his  chair, 


HOW    SHDERS'   WEBS    ARE    DANGEROUS.  333 

and  flinging  his  knife  and  fork  across  the  room,  "arrest 
me  if  you  like,  but  I  tell  you,  ouee  for  all,  1  won't  go  to 
England;  no,  I  won't,  I  won't,  I  won't!  " 

"  Well,  well,  marquis,  what 's  the  matter  with  you,  hey?  " 

"The  devil!  You've  stimulated  my  ambition,  you've 
spurred  my  pride  and  my  self-love.  Though  I  know,  if 
you  come  to  Souday  —  as  you  've  promised,  mind  you,  after 
the  campaign  is  over  —  I  shall  have  nothing  to  tell  you 
equal  to  your  own  performances." 

"Listen  to  me,  my  old  and  excellent  enemy,"  said  the 
general.  "I  have  given  you  my  word  not  to  arrest  you, 
this  time  at  least,  and  whatever  you  may  do,  or  rather, 
whatever  you  may  have  done,  I  shall  keep  my  word;  but 
I  do  entreat  you,  in  the  name  of  the  interest  you  have 
inspired  in  me,  in  the  name  of  your  charming  daughters, 
do  not  commit  the  folly  on  which  you  are  bent,  and  if  you 
will  not  leave  France,  at  least  stay  quietly  at  home." 

"And  why?" 

"Because  the  memories  of  those  heroic  times,  which  are 
making  your  heart  beat  now  are  but  memories  ;  because  the 
emotions  of  the  great  and  glorious  actions  you  would  like 
to  see  renewed  are  gone  forever;  because  the  day  of  great 
deeds  of  arms,  of  devotion  without  conditions,  of  deaths 
sublime  in  constancy,  are  passed  without  recall.  Oh  !  I 
knew  her,  I  knew  her  well,  that  unconquerable  Vendée. 
I  can  say  so,  —  I  who  bear  the  scars  of  her  steel  upon  my 
breast.  Well,  I  have  been  for  the  last  month  in  the  midst 
of  her,  in  the  midst  of  the  places  of  the  past,  and  I  tell 
you  I  look  for  her  old  self  in  vain;  I  cannot  find  it,  and  no 
one  can  find  it.  My  poor  marquis,  count  up  the  few  young 
gallant  fellows,  whose  brave  hearts  dare  to  face  the  strug- 
gle, count  up  the  veteran  heroes  who,  like  you,  think  that 
the  duty  of  1793  is  still  a  duty  in  1832,  and  see  for  your- 
self that  a  struggle  so  unequal  is  sheer  madness." 

"It  will  not  be  less  glorious  for  that,  my  dear  general," 
cried  the  marquis,  forgetting  in  his  enthusiasm  the  politi- 
cal position  of  his  companion. 


334  THE    LAST    VENDEE. 

"No,  no;  it  will  not  be  glorious  in  any  sense.  All  that 
happens,  —  you  '11  see,  and  when  you  do,  remember  that  I 
foretold  it  to  you,  —  all  that  is  now  about  to  happen  will 
be  colorless,  barren,  puny,  stunted;  and  on  both  sides,  too. 
Yes,  my  God  !  with  us  as  well  as  with  you:  with  us,  petty 
motives,  base  betrayals;  with  you,  self-seeking  compro- 
mises, contemptible  meannesses,  which  will  cut  you  to  the 
heart,  my  poor  marquis,  which  will  kill  you,  — you,  whom 
the  balls  of  the  Blues  have  left  untouched." 

"You  see  things  as  a  partisan  of  the  established  govern- 
ment, general;  you  forget  that  we  have  many  friends  even 
in  your  own  ranks,  and  that  when  we  say  the  word  this 
whole  region  will  rise  as  one  man." 

The  general  shook  his  shoulders. 

"In  my  time,  old  comrade,  — allow  me  to  call  you  so," 
he  said,  —  "all  that  was  Blue  was  Blue;  all  that  was 
White  was  White.  There  was,  to  be  sure,  something 
red,  — the  executioner  and  his  guillotine:  but  don't  let  us 
speak  of  that.  You  had  no  friends  in  our  ranks,  we  had 
none  in  yours;  and  it  was  that  which  made  us  equally 
strong,  equally  great,  equally  terrible.  At  a  word  from 
you  La  Vendée  will  rise,  you  say?  You  are  mistaken. 
La  Vendée,  which  went  to  its  death  in  1795,  relying  on 
the  coming  of  a  prince  whose  word  she  trusted,  and  who 
failed  her,  will  not  rise  now;  no,  not  even  when  she  sees 
the  Duchesse  de  Berry  within  her  borders.  Your  peasants 
have  lost  that  political  faith  which  moves  human  moun- 
tains, which  drives  them  one  against  another,  clashing 
together  until  they  sink  in  a  sea  of  blood,  —  that  faith 
which  begets  and  perpetuates  martyrs.  We  ourselves, 
marquis,  —  I  am  forced  to  acknowledge  it,  —  no  longer 
possess  that  passion  for  liberty,  progress,  glory,  which 
shook  the  old  worlds  to  their  centres,  and  gave  birth  to 
heroes.  The  civil  war  which  is  about  to  break  out  —  if. 
indeed,  there  must  be  a  civil  war,  and  if  it  must  break  out 
—  will  be  just  such  a  war  as  Barème  describes  :  a  war  in 
which  victory  is  certain  to  be  on  the  side  of  the  big  bat- 


HOW  spiders'  webs  are  dangerous.  335 

talions,  the  best  exchequer.  And  that  is  why  I  say  to 
you,  count  the  cost,  count  it  twice  over,  before  you  fling 
yourself  into  this  mad  folly." 

"You  are  mistaken;  I  tell  you,  general,  you  are  mis- 
taken. We  are  not  without  an  army,  without  soldiers  ; 
and,  more  fortunate  than  in  former  times,  we  have  a  leader 
whose  sex  will  electrify  the  cautious,  rally  all  devotions, 
and  silence  contending  ambitions." 

"  Poor,  valorous  young  woman  !  poor,  noble,  poetic 
spirit  !  "  said  the  old  soldier,  in  a  tone  of  the  deepest  pity, 
dropping  his  scarred  brow  upon  his  breast.  "Presently 
she  will  have  no  more  relentless  enemy  than  myself;  but 
while  I  am  still  in  this  room,  on  neutral  ground,  I  will 
tell  you  how  I  admire  her  resolution,  her  courage,  her  per- 
sistent tenacity,  and  how  truly  I  deplore  that  she  was  born 
in  an  epoch  that  is  no  longer  of  the  measure  of  her  soul. 
The  times  have  changed,  marquis,  since  Jeanne  de  Moi  it - 
fort  had  but  to  strike  the  soil  of  Brittany  with  her 
mailed  heel  for  warriors  to  spring  up  fully  armed  from  it. 
Marquis,  remember  what  I  predict  to  you  this  day,  and 
repeat  it  to  that  poor  woman,  if  you  see  her, —  namely,  that 
her  noble  heart,  more  valiant  even  than  that  of  Comtesse 
Jeanne,  will  receive,  as  the  reward  of  her  abnegation,  her 
energy,  her  devotion,  her  sublime  elevation  of  soul  as  prin- 
cess and  mother,  only  indifference,  ingratitude,  baseness, 
cowardice,  treachery  of  all  kinds.  And  now,  my  dear  mar- 
quis, make  your  decision,  say  your  last  word." 

"My  last  word,  general,  is  like  my  first." 

"Repeat  it,  then." 

"I  will  not  go  to  England,"  said  the  old  man,  firmly. 

"Listen,"  continued  Dermoncourt,  laying  a  hand  on  the 
marquis's  shoulder,  and  looking  him  in  the  eyes.  "You 
are  as  proud  as  a  Gascon,  Vendéan  though  you  be.  Your 
revenues  are  small,  I  know  that,  — oh,  don't  begin  to  frown 
in  that  way  ;  let  me  finish  what  I  have  to  say,  —  damn  it, 
you  know  I  would  n't  offer  you  anything  I  would  n't  accept 
myself." 


336  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

The  marquis's  face  returned  to  its  first  expression. 

"I  was  saying,"  continued  the  general,  "that  your 
revenues  are  slender;  and  in  this  cursed  region  of  country 
it  is  not  enough  to  possess  revenues,  great  or  small,  —  you 
must  also  collect  them.  Well,  that 's  difficult;  and  if  you 
can't  get  the  money  to  cross  the  straits  and  hire  a  little 
cottage  somewhere  in  England,  —  well,  I  'm  not  rich,  I 
have  only  my  pay,  but  I  have  managed  to  lay  by  a  few 
hundred  louis  (a  comrade  accepts  such  things,  you  know)  ; 
won't  you  take  them?  After  the  peace,  as  you  say,  you 
can  pay  them  back." 

"  Stop  !  stop  !  "  said  the  marquis  ;  "  you  know  me  only 
since  yesterday,  and  you  treat  me  like  a  friend  of  twenty 
years'  standing."  The  old  Vendéan  scratched  his  ear,  and 
added,  as  if  speaking  to  himself,  "  How  could  I  ever  show 
my  gratitude  for  such  an  act?  " 

"Then  you  accept  it?  " 

"No,  no;  I  refuse  it." 

"But  you  will  go?" 

"I  stay." 

"  God  keep  you  then  in  health  and  safety  !  "  said  the 
old  general,  his  patience  exhausted.  "Only,  it  is  likely 
that  chance,  the  devil  take  it  !  will  bring  us  face  to  face 
together  once  more,  as  we  were  formerly  ;  and  now  that  I 
know  you,  if  there  is  a  hand-to-hand  fight,  such  as  there 
used  to  be  in  the  old  days,  at  Laval,  hey?  I  swear  I'll 
seek  you  out." 

"And  I  '11  seek  you,"  cried  the  marquis;  "I  '11  shout  for 
you  with  all  my  lungs.  I  'd  be  thankful  and  proud  to 
show  these  greenhorns  what  the  men  of  the  old  war  were." 

"Well,  there  's  the  bugle  sounding;  I  must  go.  Adieu, 
marquis,  and  thank  you  for  your  hospitality." 

"Au  revoir,  general,  and  thanks  for  a  friendship  which 
I  must  prove  to  you  I  share." 

The  two  old  men  shook  hands,  and  Dermoncourt  went 
away.  The  marquis,  as  he  dressed  himself,  watched  the 
little  column  disappearing  up  the  avenue  in  the  direction 


HOW  spiders'  webs  are  dangerous.  337 

of  the  forest.  At  a  couple  of  hundred  paces  from  tin- 
chateau  the  general  ordered  a  half-turn  to  the  right;  then, 
stopping  his  horse,  he  gave  a  last  look  at  the  little  pointed 
turrets  of  his  new  friend's  abode.  Seeing  the  marquis  at 
a  window,  he  waved  him  a  last  adieu,  and  then,  turning 
rein,  he  rejoined  his  men. 

After  following  with  his  eyes,  as  long  as  they  were 
visible,  the  detachment  and  the  man  who  commanded  it, 
the  marquis  turned  from  the  window,  and  as  he  did  so  he 
heard  a  slight  scratching  on  a  little  door  behind  his  bed, 
which  communicated,  through  a  dressing-room,  with  the 
backstairs. 

"Who  the  devil  is  coming  this  way?"  he  thought, 
drawing  the  bolt. 

The  door  opened  immediately,  and  gave  entrance  to 
Jean  Oullier. 

"  Jean  Oullier  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  in  a  tone  of  actual 
joy.  "Is  it  you?  are  you  really  here,  my  good  Jean 
Oullier?  Ha  !  faith  !  the  day  has  begun  under  good 
auspices." 

He  held  out  his  hand  to  his  keeper,  who  pressed  it  with 
a  lively  expression  of  respect  and  gratitude.  Then,  dis- 
engaging his  hand,  Jean  Oullier  produced  from  his  pocket 
and  gave  to  the  marquis  a  piece  of  coarse  paper  folded  into 
the  shape  of  a  letter.  M.  de  Souday  opened  and  read  it. 
As  he  read  his  face  beamed  with  joy  unspeakable. 

"Jean  Oullier,"  he  said,  "call  the  young  ladies;  assem- 
ble all  my  people  !  No,  no  ;  stop  !  don't  assemble  any  of 
them  yet.  Polish  up  my  sword,  my  pistols,  my  carbine, 
all  my  war  accoutrements;  give  Tristan  oats.  The  cam- 
paign opens  !  My  dear  Jean  Oullier,  the  campaign  is 
opening  !     Bertha  !  Mary  !  Bertha  !  " 

"Monsieur  le  marquis,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  calmly,  "the 
campaign  has  been  opened  for  me  since  yesterday  at  three 
o'clock." 

The  sisters  now  rushed  in,  hearing  their  father's  call, 
Mary's  eyes  were  red  and  swollen.     Bertha  was  radiant. 
vol.  i.  — 22 


338  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

"Young  ladies  !  girls  !  "  cried  the  marquis;  "you  are  in 
it  !     You  are  to  come  with  me  !     Here,  read  this." 

And  he  held  out  to  Bertha  the  letter  Jean  Oullier  had 
just  given  him.     The  letter  was  thus  worded:  — 

Monsieur  le  Marquis  de  Souday,  —  It  is  desirable  for  the 
cause  of  King  Henri  V.  that  you  hasten  by  several  days  the  call 
to  arms.  Have  the  goodness,  therefore,  to  assemble  all  the  most 
devoted  men  that  you  have  in  the  district  which  you  command, 
and  hold  yourself  and  them,  especially  yourself,  at  my  immediate 
orders. 

I  think  that  two  more  amazons  in  our  little  army  will  help  to 
spur  on  the  love  and  the  self-love  of  our  friends,  and  I  ask  you, 
my  dear  marquis,  to  be  so  very  kind  as  to  grant  me  your  beautiful 
and  charming  huntresses  as  my  aides-de-camp. 
Your  affectionate 

Petit-Pierre. 

"Well,"  said  Bertha,  "are  we  to  go?" 

"  Of  course  !  "  exclaimed  the  marquis. 

"Then  allow  me,  papa,"  said  Bertha,  "to  present  to  you 
a  recruit." 

"As  many  as  you  like." 

Mary  was  silent  and  motionless.  Bertha  left  the  room, 
and  returned  in  a  few  moments,  leading  Michel  by  the 
hand. 

"Baron  Michel  de  la  Logerie,"  said  the  girl,  dwell- 
ing on  the  title,  "wishes  to  prove  to  you  papa,  that  his 
Majesty  Louis  XVIII.  was  not  mistaken  in  granting  his 
family  a  patent  of  nobility." 

The  marquis,  who  had  frowned  at  the  name  of  Michel, 
softened  his  aspect. 

"  I  shall  follow  with  interest  any  efforts  Monsieur  Michel 
may  make  with  that  object  in  view,"  he  said,  at  last, 
uttering  those  dignified  words  in  a  tone  the  Emperor 
Napoleon  might  have  used  on  the  eve  of  the  battle  of 
Marengo. 


cindekklla's  blippeb  does  not  fit.  339 


XXXVIII. 

IN  WHICH  THE  DAINTIEST  FOOT  OF  FRANCE  AND  OF  NAVARRE 
FINDS  THAT  CINDERELLA'S  SLIPPER  DOES  NOT  FIT  IT  AS 
WELL    AS    SEVEN-LEAGUE    BOOTS. 

Here  we  are  obliged  to  double  in  our  tracks,  as  Jean 
Oullier  would  say  in  hunting  parlance,  and  ask  our  reader's 
permission  to  retrograde  a  few  hours,  and  follow  the  Courte 
de  Bonneville  and  Petit-Pierre,  who,  as  we  have  probably 
made  it  clear,  are  not  the  least  important  personages  of 
our  history. 

The  general's  suppositions  were  perfectly  correct.  When 
the  fleeing  party  left  the  subterranean  passage,  the  Ven- 
déan  gentlemen  crossed  the  ruins,  entered  the  covered 
way,  and.  there  deliberated  for  a  few  moments  on  the 
proper  course  to  pursue.  The  one  whose  identity  was  con- 
cealed under  the  name  of  Gaspard  *  thought  it  advisable  to 
move  cautiously.  Bonneville's  excitement  when  Michel 
announced  the  approach  of  the  column  had  not  escaped 
him;  he  heard  an  exclamation  the  count  could  not  restrain, 
—  "We  must  put  Petit-Pierre  in  safety  !  "  Consequently, 
he  watched  during  their  flight  (as  well  as  the  feeble  gleam 
of  the  torches  would  allow)  the  features  of  the  little  peas- 
ant, the  result  being  that  his  manners  became  not  only 
reserved  but  profoundly  respectful. 

"You  said,  monsieur,"  he  now  exclaimed,  addressing  the 
Comte  de  Bonneville,  "  that  the  safety  of  the  person  who 
accompanies  you  was  to  be  considered  before  our  own, 
being  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  cause  we  are  resolved 
to  sustain.     Ought  we  not  therefore  to  remain  as  a  body- 

1  I  refer  those  of  my  readers  who  would  like  to  have  a  key  to  the  real 
names  of  these  men  to  the  careful  and  interesting  book  of  General 
Dermoncourt  entitled  "  La  Vende'e  and  Madame." 


340  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

guard  to  that  person,  so  that  if  any  danger  threatens  him, 
—  and  we  are  likely  now  to  meet  danger  everywhere,  —  we 
may  be  at  hand  to  make  a  rampart  of  our  bodies  for  him." 

"  You  would  be  right  no  doubt,  monsieur,  if  the  question 
were  one  of  fighting,"  said  the  Comte  de  Bonneville. 
"But  just  now  our  object  is  flight,  and  for  that  the  fewer 
we  are  in  number,  the  easier  and  more  certain  our  escape." 

"Remember,  count,"  said  Gaspard,  frowning,  "that  you 
take  upon  yourself  at  twenty-two  years  of  age  the  respon- 
sibility of  a  very  precious  treasure." 

"My  devotion  has  already  been  judged,  monsieur," 
replied  the  count,  haughtily.  "I  shall  endeavor  to  be 
worthy  of  the  confidence  with  which  I  am  honored." 

Petit-Pierre,  who  had  hitherto  held  his  place  silently  in 
the  midst  of  the  little  group,  now  thought  the  time  had 
come  to  interfere. 

"Come,  come,"  he  said;  "the  safety  of  a  poor  little  peas- 
ant must  not  be  made  an  apple  of  discord  between  the 
noblest  champions  of  the  cause  you  mention.  I  see  it  is 
necessary  that  I  should  say  a  word;  we  have  no  time  to 
lose  in  useless  discussion.  But  I  wish,  in  the  first  place, 
my  friends,  "  said  Petit-Pierre,  in  a  tone  of  grateful  affec- 
tion, "  to  ask  your  pardon  for  the  disguise  I  have  thought 
best  to  keep  up,  even  with  you,  for  one  purpose  only,  that 
of  hearing  your  real  thoughts,  your  frank  opinions,  un- 
affected by  your  desire  to  comply  with  what  is  known  to 
be  my  most  ardent  desire.  Now  that  Petit-Pierre  has 
gained  the  information  he  sought,  the  regent  will  take 
part  in  your  discussions.  Meantime,  let  us  separate  here  ; 
the  poorest  place  is  all  I  need  to  pass  the  rest  of  the  night, 
and  Monsieur  de  Bonneville,  who  knows  the  country  well, 
can  easily  find  it  for  me." 

"When  may  we  be  admitted  to  confer  with  her  Boyal 
Highness?  "  asked  Pascal,  bowing  low  before  Petit-Pierre. 

"As  soon  as  her  Royal  Highness  can  find  a  suitable 
abode  for  her  wandering  majesty,  Petit-Pierre  will  sum- 
mon you;  it  will  not  be  long.  Remember  that  Petit-Pierre 
is  firmly  resolved  never  to  abandon  his  friends." 


CINDERELLA'S   SLIPPER   DOES   NOT   PIT.  341 

•'Petit-Pierre  is  a  gallant  lad  !"  cried  Gaspard,  gayly, 
'and  his  friends  will  prove,  I  hope,  that  they  are  worthy 
of  him." 

"Farewell,  then,"  said  Petit-Pierre.  "Now  that  the 
mask  is  off,  I  thank  you  heartily,  my  gallant  Gaspard,  for 
not  being  deceived  by  it.  Come,  it  is  time  to  shake  hands 
and  part." 

Each  gentleman,  in  turn,  took  the  hand  that  Petit- 
Pierre  held  out  to  him  and  kissed  it  respectfully.  Then 
they  all  separated  on  their  different  ways,  some  to  the 
right,  others  to  the  left,  and  soon  disappeared  from  sight. 
Bonneville  and  Petit-Pierre  were  left  alone. 

"Well,  what  shall  we  do?  "  said  the  latter. 

"Follow  a  direction  diametrically  opposed  to  those 
gentlemen." 

"Forward,  then,  without  losing  another  minute,"  cried 
Petit-Pierre,  running  toward  the  road. 

"  Oh  !  wait,  wait  a  moment  !  "  cried  Bonneville.  "  Not 
in  that  way,  if  you  please.     Your  Highness  must  —  " 

"Bonneville,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  "don't  forget  our 
agreement." 

"  True  ;  Madame  must  please  excuse  —  " 

"  Again  !  why,  you  are  incorrigible  !  " 

"  I  was  about  to  say  that  Petit-Pierre  must  allow  me  to 
take  him  on  my  back." 

"Very  good;  here  's  a  great  stone  that  seems  planted  here 
for  the  very  purpose.     Come  nearer,  count;  come  nearer." 

Petit-Pierre  was  already  on  the  stone  as  he  spoke.  The 
young  count  approached,  and  Petit-Pierre  mounted  astride 
his  shoulders. 

"You  take  to  it  famously,"  said  Bonneville,  starting. 

"  Parbleu  !  "  exclaimed  Petit-Pierre.  "  Saddle-my-nag 
was  a  fashionable  game  when  I  was  young;  I  have  often 
played  at  it." 

"A  good  education,  you  see,  is  never  wasted,"  said 
Bonneville,  laughing. 

"Count,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  "it  isn't  forbidden  to  speak, 
is  it?  " 


342  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

"On  the  contrary." 

"  Well,  then,  as  you  are  an  old  Chouan,  and  I  am  only 
beginning  my  apprenticeship  at  Chouannerie,  do  tell  me 
why  I  am  perched  on  your  shoulders." 

"  What  an  inquisitive  little  person  is  Petit-Pierre  !  "  said 
Bonneville. 

"No;  for  I  did  as  you  requested,  instantly,  without  dis- 
cussion, though  the  position  is  a  rather  questionable  one, 
you  must  admit,  for  a  princess  of  the  House  of  Bourbon." 

"  A  princess  of  the  House  of  Bourbon  !  Is  there  any 
such  person  here?  " 

"  Ah  !  true.  Well  then,  please  to  tell  me  why  Petit- 
Pierre,  who  can  walk  and  run  and  jump  ditches,  is  perched 
on  the  shoulders  of  his  friend  Bonneville,  who  can't  do 
any  of  those  things  with  Petit-Pierre  on  his  back." 

"Well,  I  '11  tell  you;  it  is  because  Petit-Pierre  has  such 
a  tiny  foot." 

"  Tiny,  yes  ;  but  firm,  too  !  "  exclaimed  Petit-Pierre,  as 
if  his  vanity  was  ruffled. 

"Yes,  but  firm  as  it  may  be,  it  is  too  small  not  to  be 
recognized." 

"By  whom?" 

"By  those  who  are  on  our  traces." 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  exclaimed  Petit-Pierre,  with  comic 
sadness  ;  "  who  would  ever  have  told  me  that  some  day,  or 
some  night,  I  should  regret  that  my  foot  was  not  as  large 
as  that  of  Madame  la  Duchesse  de " 

"Poor  Marquis  de  Souday,  who  was  so  fluttered  by  what 
you  told  him  of  your  court  acquaintances,"  said  Bonneville, 
laughing,  "  what  would  he  think  now  if  he  heard  you  talk- 
ing with  such  assurance  and  experience  of  the  feet  of 
duchesses?  " 

"He  would  set  it  down  to  my  rôle  of  page."  Then  after 
a  moment's  silence,  "I  understand  very  well  that  you 
should  want  them  to  lose  my  tracks;  but  you  know  we 
3an't  travel  long  in  this  way.  Saint  Christopher  himself 
would  get  tired;  and,  sooner  or  later,  that  wretched  little 
foot  will  leave  its  imprint  on  a  patch  of  mud." 


CINDERELLA'S    SLIPPER   DOES    NOT   FIT.  343 

"  We  '11  baffle  the  hounds  for  a  short  time,  at  any  rate." 

The  young  man  bore  to  the  left,  attracted  by  the  sound 
of  a  brook. 

"What  are  you  about?  "  asked  Petit-Pierre.  "You  will 
lose  the  path;  you  are  knee-deep  in  water  now." 

"Of  course  I  am,"  said  Bonneville,  hoisting  Petit-Pierre 
a  little  higher  on  his  shoulders;  ''and  now  L-t  thou  look 
for  our  traces  !  "  he  cried,  hurrying  up  the  bed  of  the 
brook. 

"Ha,  ha!  that  is  clever  of  you!"  cried  Petit-Pierre. 
"You  have  missed  your  vocation,  Bonneville;  you  ought 
to  have  been  born  in  a  primeval  forest,  or  on  the  pampas 
of  South  America.  The  fact  is  that,  to  follow  us,  a  trail 
is  needed,  and  here  there  is  none." 

"  Don't  laugh.  The  man  who  is  after  us  is  an  old  hand 
at  such  pursuits;  he  fought  in  La  Vendée  in  the  clays  when 
Charette,  almost  single-handed,  gave  the  Blues  a  terrible 
piece  of  work  to  do." 

"Well,  so  much  the  better,"  cried  Petit-Pierre,  gayly; 
"better  far  to  fight  with  those  who  are  worth  the  trouble." 

But  in  spite  of  the  confidence  he  thus  expressed,  Petit- 
Pierre,  after  uttering  the  words,  grew  thoughtful,  while 
Bonneville  struggled  bravely  against  the  rolling  stones  and 
fallen  branches  which  impeded  him  greatly,  for  he  still 
followed  the  course  of  the  brook. 

After  another  quarter  of  an  hour  of  such  advance  the 
brook  fell  into  a  second  and  a  wider  stream,  which  was 
really  the  one  that  circles  at  the  base  of  the  Viette  des 
Biques.  Here  the  water  came  to  Bonneville's  waist,  and 
presently,  to  his  great  regret,  he  was  forced  to  land  and 
continue  his  way  along  one  or  the  other  bank  of  the  little 
stream. 

But  the  fugitives  had  only  gone  from  Scylla  to  Charybdis, 
for  the  shores  of  the  mountain-torrent,  bristling  with 
thorns,  interlaced  with  trunks  and  roots  of  fallen  trees, 
soon  became  impassable. 

Bonneville  placed  Petit-Pierre  on  the  ground,  finding  it 


344  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

impossible  to  carry  him  further,  and  struck  boldly  into 
the  thicket,  requesting  Petit-Pierre  to  follow  closely 
through  the  opening  made  by  his  body;  and  thus,  in  spite 
of  all  obstacles,  in  spite  too  of  the  darkness  of  the  night 
and  the  deeper  darkness  of  the  woods,  he  advanced  in  a 
straight  line,  as  none  but  those  who  have  constant  ex- 
perience in  forests  can  succeed  in  doing. 

The  plan  succeeded  well,  for  after  going  some  fifty  yards 
they  struck  one  of  those  paths  called  "lines,"  which  are 
cut  parallel  to  each  other  through  forests,  partly  to  mark 
the  limits  of  felling,  and  partly  to  facilitate  the  transpor- 
tation of  the  wood. 

"  Oh,  what  a  good  find  !  "  said  Petit-Pierre,  who  found  it 
hard  to  walk  through  the  tangle  of  underbrush  and  briers 
which  rose  at  times  above  his  head.  "  Here,  at  least,  we 
can  stretch  our  legs." 

"Yes,  and  without  leaving  tracks,"  replied  Bonneville, 
striking  the  ground,  which  was  hard  and  rocky. 

"Now  all  we  want  to  know  is  which  way  to  go,"  said 
Petit-Pierre. 

"As  we  have,  I  believe,  thrown  those  who  are  after  us 
off  the  scent,  we  can  now  go  whichever  way  you  think 
best,"  replied  Bonneville. 

"You  know  that  to-morrow  night  I  have  a  rendezvous  at 
La  Cloutière  with  our  friends  from  Paris." 

"  We  can  get  to  La  Cloutière  from  here  almost  without 
leaving  the  woods,  where  we  are  safer  than  we  should  be 
in  the  open.  We  can  take  a  path  I  know  of  to  the  forest 
of  Touvois  and  the  Grandes-Landes,  to  the  west  of  which 
is  La  Cloutière;  only,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  get  there 
to-day." 

"  Why  not?  " 

"  Because  we  should  have  to  make  a  number  of  detours, 
which  would  take  us  at  least  six  hours;  and  that  is  very 
much  more  than  you  have  strength  for." 

Petit-Pierre  stamped  his  foot  impatiently. 

"I  know  a  farm-house,"  continued   Bonneville,   "about 


CINDERELLA'S   SLIPPER   DOES   NOT   FIT.  345 

three  miles  this  side  of  La  Benaste,  where  we  should  be 
welcome,  and  where  you  could  rest  awhile  before  doing 
the  remainder  of  the  way." 

"Very  good,"  said  Petit-Pierre;  "then  let  us  start  at 
once.     Which  way?  " 

"Let  me  precede  you,"  said  Bonneville.  "We  must  go 
to  the  right." 

Bonneville  took  the  direction  he  named,  and  stalked 
on  with  the  persistency  he  had  shown  on  leaving  the  banks 
of  the  stream.     Petit-Pierre  followed  him. 

From  time  to  time  the  Comte  de  Bonneville  stopped  to 
reconnoitre  the  way  and  give  his  companion  time  to  breathe. 
He  warned  him  of  the  various  obstacles  in  the  path  before 
they  came  to  them,  with  a  minuteness  which  showed  how 
thoroughly  familiar  he  was  with  the  forest  of  Machecoul. 

"You  see  I  am  avoiding  the  paths,"  he  said  to  his  com- 
panion, during  one  of  their  halts. 

"Yes;  and  why  do  you  do  so?  " 

"  Because  they  will  be  certain  to  look  for  us  in  the  paths 
where  the  ground  is  soft;  whereas  here,  where  there  has 
not  been  so  much  trampling,  our  steps  are  less  likely  to  be 
observed." 

"But  perhaps  this  way  is  the  longer." 

"Yes,  but  safer." 

They  walked  on  for  ten  minutes  in  silence,  when  Bonne- 
ville stopped  and  caught  his  companion  by  the  arm.  The 
latter  asked  what  the  trouble  was. 

"Hush  !  or  speak  very  low,"  said  Bonneville. 

"Why?" 

"Don't  you  hear  anything?  " 

"No." 

"I  hear  voices." 

"Where?" 

"There,  about  five  hundred  yards  in  that  direction.  I 
fancy  I  can  distinguish  through  the  branches  a  ruddy  gleam 
of  light." 

"Yes,  and  so  can  I." 


346  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

';  What  do  you  suppose  it  is?  " 

"I  ask  you  that." 

"  The  devil  !  " 

"Can  it  be  charcoal-burners?  " 

"No;  this  is  not  the  time  of  year  when  they  start  their 
kilns.  And  if  they  were  charcoal-burners,  I  should  not 
like  to  trust  thein  ;  I  have  no  right,  being  your  guide,  to 
run  any  risks." 

"Is  there  any  other  road  we  could  take?  " 

"Yes." 

"Then  suppose  we  try  it." 

"I  don't  want  to  take  it  till  reduced  to  the  last 
extremity." 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  it  crosses  a  marsh." 

"  Pooh  !  you  who  can  walk  on  the  water  like  Saint  Peter  ! 
Don't  you  know  the  marsh?  " 

"I  know  it  very  well.  I  have  often  shot  snipe  there; 
but  —  " 

"But?" 

"It  was  by  daylight." 

"  And  this  marsh  —  " 

"  Is  a  bog  where,  even  in  the  daytime,  I  have  come  near 
sinking." 

"  Then  let  us  risk  an  encounter  with  these  worthy  peo- 
ple.    I  should  not  be  sorry  to  warm  myself  at  their  fire." 

"Stay  here;  and  let  me  go  and  reconnoitre." 

"But  —  " 

"Don't  be  afraid." 

So  saying,  Bonneville  disappeared  noiselessly  in  the 
darkness. 


PETIT-PIERKE   MAKES   A   GOOD   MEAL.  347 


XXXIX. 

PETIT-PIERRE    MAKES    THE    BEST    MEAL    HE    EVER    MADE    IN 
HIS    LIFE. 

Petit-Pierre,  left  alone,  leaned  against  a  tree,  and  there, 
silent,  motionless,  with  fixed  eyes  and  straining  ears,  he 
waited,  striving  to  catch  every  sound  as  it  passed  him. 
For  five  minutes  he  heard  nothing  except  a  sort  of  hum 
which  came  from  the  direction  of  the  lights. 

Suddenly  the  neighing  of  a  horse  echoed  through  the 
forest.  Petit-Pierre  trembled.  Almost  at  the  same 
moment  a  light  sound  came  from  the  bushes,  and  a  shadow 
rose  before  him;  it  was  Bonneville. 

Bonneville,  who  did  not  see  Petit-Pierre  leaning  against 
the  trunk  of  a  tree,  called  him  twice  gently.  Petit-Pierre 
bounded  toward  him. 

"  Quick  !  quick  !  "  said  Bonneville,  dragging  Petit-Pierre 
away. 

"What  is  it?" 

"  Not  an  instant  to  lose  !     Gome  !  come  !  " 

Then,  as  he  ran,  he  said  :  — 

"  A  camp  of  soldiers.  If  there  were  men  only  I  might 
have  warmed  myself  at  their  fire  without  their  seeing  or 
hearing  me;  but  a  horse  smelt  me  out  and  neighed." 

"I  heard  it." 

"Then  you  understand;  not  a  word.  We  must  take  to 
our  legs,  that 's  all." 

As  he  spoke  they  were  running  along  a  wood-road,  which 
fortunately  came  in  their  way.  After  a  time  Bonneville 
drew  Petit-Pierre  into  the  bushes. 

"Get  your  breath,"  he  said. 


348  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

While  Petit-Pierre  rested,  Bonneville  tried  to  make  out 
where  they  were. 

"Are  we  lost?"  asked  Petit-Pierre,  uneasily. 

"  Oh,  no  danger  of  that  !  "  said  Bonneville.  "  I  'in  only 
looking  for  a  way  to  avoid  that  horrid  marsh." 

"  If  it  leads  us  straight  to  our  object  we  had  better  take 
it,"  said  Petit-Pierre. 

"We  must,"  replied  Bonneville;  "I  don't  see  any  other 
way.  " 

"Forward,  then!"  cried  Petit-Pierre;  "only,  you  must 
guide  me." 

Bonneville  made  no  answer;  but  in  proof  of  urgency,  he 
started  at  once,  and  instead  of  following  the  "  line  "  path 
on  which  they  were,  he  turned  to  the  right  and  plunged 
into  the  thicket.  At  the  end  of  ten  minutes'  march  the 
underbrush  lessened.  They  were  nearing  the  edge  of  the 
forest,  and  they  could  hear  before  them  the  swishing  of 
the  reeds  in  the  wind. 

"  Aha  !  "  cried  Petit-Pierre,  recognizing  the  sound  ;  "  we 
are  close  to  the  marsh  now." 

"Yes,"  said  Bonneville;  "and  I  ought  not  to  conceal 
from  you  that  this  is  the  most  critical  moment  of  our 
flight." 

So  saying,  the  young  man  took  from  his  pocket  a  knife, 
which  might,  if  necessary,  be  used  as  a  dagger,  and  cut 
down  a  sapling,  removing  all  the  branches,  but  taking  care 
to  hide  each  one  as  he  lopped  it  off. 

"Now,"  he  said,  "my  poor  Petit-Pierre,  you  must 
resign  yourself  and  go  back  to  your  former  place  on  my 
shoulders." 

Petit-Pierre  instantly  did  as  he  was  told,  and  Bonne- 
ville went  forward  toward  the  marsh.  His  advance  under 
the  weight  he  carried,  hindered  by  the  long  sapling  which 
he  used  to  test  the  condition  of  the  ground  at  every  step, 
was  horribly  difficult.  Often  he  sank  into  the  slough 
almost  to  his  knees,  and  the  earth,  which  seemed  soft 
enough  as  it  gave  way  under  him,  offered  a  positive  resist- 


PETIT-PIERRE    MAKES    A    GOOD    MEAL.  349 

ance  when  he  sought  to  extricate  himself.  It  was,  in  fact, 
with  the  utmost  difficulty  that  he  could  get  his  legs  out  of 
it;  it  seemed  as  though  the  gulf  that  opened  at  their  feet 
was  unwilling  to  relinquish  its  prey. 

"Let  me  give  you  some  advice,  my  dear  count,"  said 
Petit-Pierre. 

Bonneville  stopped  and  wiped  his  brow. 

"If,  instead  of  paddling  in  this  mire,  you  stepped  from 
tuft  to  tuft  of  those  reeds  which  are  growing  here,  I  think 
you  would  find  a  better  foothold." 

"Yes,"  said  Bonneville,  "I  should;  but  we  should  leave 
more  visible  traces."  Then,  a  moment  later,  he  added, 
"No  matter.     You  are  right;  it  is  best." 

And  changing  his  direction  a  little,  Bonneville  took  to 
the  reeds.  The  matted  roots  of  the  water-plants  had,  in 
fact,  made  little  islets  of  a  foot  or  more  in  circumference, 
which  gave  a  fairly  good  foothold  over  the  boggy  ground. 
The  young  man  felt  them,  one  after  the  other,  with  the 
end  of  his  stick  and  stepped  from  each  to  each. 

Nevertheless,  he  slipped  constantly.  Burdened  with 
Petit-Pierre's  weight,  he  had  great  difficulty  in  recovering 
himself;  and  before  long  this  toilsome  struggle  so  com- 
pletely exhausted  him  he  was  forced  to  ask  Petit-Pierre  to 
get  down  and  let  him  rest  awhile. 

"You  are  worn  out,  my  poor  Bonneville,"  said  Petit- 
Pierre.     "Is  it  very  much  farther,  this  marsh  of  yours?" 

"Two  or  three  hundred  yards  more,  and  then  we  re-enter 
the  forest  as  far  as  the  line-path  to  Benaste,  which  will 
take  us  direct  to  the  farm." 

"  Can  you  go  as  far  as  that?  " 

"I  hope  so." 

"  Good  God  !  how  I  wish  I  could  carry  you  myself,  or  at 
any  rate,  walk  beside  you." 

These  words  restored  the  count's  courage.  Giving  up 
his  second  method  of  advancing  from  tuft  to  tuft,  he 
plunged  resolutely  into  the  mire.  But  the  more  he 
advanced,    the   more    the   slough   appeared   to   move   and 


350  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

deepen.  Suddenly  Bonneville,  who  had  made  a  mistake 
and  placed  his  foot  on  a  spot  he  had  not  had  time  to  sound, 
felt  himself  sinking  rapidly  and  likely  to  disappear. 

"If  I  sink  altogether,"  he  said,  "fling  yourself  either 
to  right  or  left.  These  dangerous  places  are  never  very 
wide." 

Petit-Pierre  sprang  off  at  once,  not  to  save  himself,  but 
to  lighten  Bonneville  of  the  additional  weight. 

"  Oh,  my  friend  !  "  he  cried,  with  an  aching  heart  and 
eyes  wet  with  tears  as  he  listened  to  that  generous  cry  of 
devotion  and  self-forgetfulness,  "think  only  of  yourself, 
I  command  you." 

The  young  count  had  already  sunk  to  the  waist.  Fortu- 
nately, he  had  time  to  put  his  sapling  across  the  bog  before 
him;  and  as  each  end  rested  on  a  tuft  of  reeds  sufficiently 
strong  to  bear  a  weight,  he  was  able,  thanks  to  the  sup- 
port they  gave,  and  aided  by  Petit-Pierre,  who  held  him 
by  the  collar  of  his  coat,  to  extricate  himself  from  the 
dangerous  place. 

Soon  the  ground  became  more  solid;  the  black  line  of 
the  woods  which  had  all  along  marked  the  horizon  came 
nearer  and  increased  in  height.  The  fugitives  were  evi- 
dently approaching  the  end  of  the  bog. 

"At  last  !  "  cried  Bonneville. 

"Ouf  !"  exclaimed  Petit-Pierre,  slipping  off  Bonneville's 
shoulders  as  soon  as  he  felt  that  the  earth  was  solid  beneath 
their  feet.     "Ouf!  you  must  be  worn  out,  my  dear  count." 

"Out  of  breath,  that 's  all,"  replied  Bonneville. 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  cried  Petit-Pierre  ;  "  to  think  that  I 
should  have  nothing  to  give  you,  —  not  even  the  flask  of  a 
soldier  or  pilgrim,  or  the  crust  of  a  beggar's  loaf  !  " 

"Pooh!"  said  the  count;  "my  strength  doesn't  come 
from  my  stomach." 

"  Tell  me  where  it  does  come  from,  my  dear  count,  and  I 
will  try  to  be  as  strong  as  you." 

"  Are  you  hungry?  " 

"I  '11  admit  that  I  could  eat  something." 


PETIT-PIERRE    MARKS    A    GOOD    MEAL.  351 

"Alas!"  said  the  count;  "you  make  me  regret  now 
what  I  cared  little  for  a  moment  ago." 

Petit-Pierre  laughed;  and  then,  for  the  purpose  of  keep- 
ing up  his  companion's  heart,  he  cried  out  gayly  :  — 

"  Bonneville,  call  the  usher  and  let  him  notify  the  cham- 
berlain on  duty  to  order  the  stewards  to  bring  my  lunch- 
basket.  I  would  like  one  of  those  snipe  I  hear  whistling 
about  us." 

"Her  Royal  Highness  is  served,"  said  the  count,  kneel- 
ing on  one  knee,  and  offering  on  the  top  of  his  hat  an 
object  which  Petit-Pierre  seized  eagerly. 

"Bread  !  "  he  cried. 

"Black  bread,"  said  Bonneville. 

"Oh,  no  matter  !     I  can't  see  the  color  at  night." 

"  Dry  bread  !  doubly  dry  !  " 

"But  it  is  bread,  at  any  rate." 

And  Petit-Pierre  set  his  handsome  teeth  into  the  crust, 
which  had  been  drying  in  the  count's  pocket  for  the  last 
two  days. 

"And  when  I  think,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  "that  General 
Dermoncourt  is  probably  at  this  moment  eating  my  supper 
at  Souday,  is  n't  it  aggravating?  "  Then,  suddenly,  "  Oh  ! 
forgive  me,  my  dear  guide,"  he  went  on,  "but  my  stomach 
got  the  better  of  my  heart;  I  forgot  to  offer  you  half  my 
supper." 

"Thanks,"  replied  Bonneville;  "but  my  appetite  isn't 
strong  enough  yet  to  munch  stones.  In  return  for  your 
gracious  offer,  I  '11  show  you  how  to  make  your  poor 
supper  less  husky." 

Bonneville  took  the  bread,  broke  it,  not  without  diffi- 
culty, into  little  bits,  soaked  it  in  a  brook  that  was  flowing 
quite  near  them,  called  Petit-Pierre,  sat  down  himself  on 
one  side  the  brook,  while  Petit-Pierre  sat  on  the  other, 
and  taking  out  one  by  one  the  softened  crusts,  presented 
them  to  his  famished  companion. 

"  Upon  my  honor  !  "  said  the  latter,  when  he  came  to 
the  last  crumb,  "  I  have  n't  eaten  such  a  good  supper  for 


352  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

twenty  years.  Bonneville,  I  appoint  you  steward  of  my 
household." 

"Meantime,"  said  the  count,  "I  am  your  guide.  Come, 
luxury  enough;  we  must  continue  our  way." 

"I'm  ready,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  springing  gayly  to  his 
feet." 

Again  they  started  through  the  woods,  and  half  an  hour's 
walking  brought  them  to  a  river  which  they  were  forced  to 
cross.  Bonneville  tried  his  usual  method;  but  at  the  first 
step,  the  water  came  to  his  waist,  at  the  second  to  his 
shoulders.  Feeling  himself  dragged  by  the  current  he 
caught  at  the  branch  of  a  tree  and  returned  to  the  bank. 

It  was  necessary  to  find  a  way  to  cross.  At  a  distance 
of  about  three  hundred  yards  Bonneville  thought  he  had 
found  one;  but  it  was  nothing  more  than  the  trunk  of  a 
tree  lately  blown  down  by  the  wiud,  and  still  bearing  all 
its  branches. 

"  Do  you  think  you  can  walk  over  that?  "  he  asked 
Petit-Pierre. 

"If  you  can,  I  can,"  replied  the  latter. 

"Hold  on  to  the  branches,  and  don't  have  any  conceit 
about  your  powers;  don't  raise  one  foot  till  you  are  quite 
sure  the  other  is  firm,"  said  Bonneville,  climbing  first  on 
to  the  trunk  of  the  tree. 

"I  'm  to  follow,  I  suppose?" 

"Wait  till  I  can  give  you  a  hand." 

"  Here  I  am  !  Goodness  !  what  a  number  of  things  one 
ought  to  know  in  order  to  roam  the  wilds;  I  never  should 
have  thought  it." 

"  Don't  talk,  for  God's  sake  !  pay  attention  to  your  feet. 
One  moment  !  Stop  where  you  are;  don't  move.  Here  's 
a  branch  you  can't  get  by;  I  '11  cut  it." 

Just  as  he  stooped  to  do  as  he  said,  the  count  heard  a 
smothered  cry  behind  him  and  the  fall  of  a  body  into  the 
water.     He  looked  back.     Petit-Pierre  had  disappeared. 

Without  losing  a  second,  Bonneville  dropped  into  the 
same  place  ;  and  his  luck  served  him  well,  for  going  to  the 


PETIT-PIERRE   MAKES    A    GOOD   MEAL.  353 

bottom  of  the  river,  which  was  not  more  than  eight  feet 
deep  at  this  place,  his  hand  came  in  contact  with  Petit- 
Pierre's  leg. 

He  seized  it,  trembling  with  emotion,  and  paying  no 
heed  to  the  uncomfortable  position  in  which  he  held  the 
body  he  struck  out  for  the  bank  of  the  stream,  which 
was,  happily,  as  narrow  as  it  was  deep.  Petit-Pierre 
made  no  movement.  Bonneville  took  him  in  his  arms 
and  laid  him  on  the  dry  leaves,  calling,  entreating,  even 
shaking  him. 

Petit-Pierre  continued  silent  and  motionless.  The  count 
tore  his  hair  in  his  anguish. 

"  Oh,  it  is  my  fault  !  my  fault  !  "  he  cried.  "  O  God, 
you  have  punished  my  pride  !  I  counted  too  much  on 
myself;  I  thought  I  could  save  her.  Oh,  my  life, —  take 
my  life,   0  God  !  for  one  sigh,   one  breath  —  " 

The  cool  night  air  did  more  to  bring  Petit-Pierre  to  life 
than  all  Bonneville's  lamentations;  at  the  end  of  a  few 
minutes  he  opened  his  eyes  and  sneezed. 

Bonneville,  who,  in  his  paroxysm  of  grief,  swore  not  to 
survive  the  being  whose  death  he  thought  he  had  caused, 
gave  a  cry  of  joy  and  fell  on  his  knees  by  Petit-Pierre, 
who  was  now  sufficiently  recovered  to  understand  his  last 
words. 

"Bonneville,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  "you  didn't  say  '  God 
bless  you  !  '  when  I  sneezed,  and  now  I  shall  have  a  cold 
in  my  head." 

"  Living  !  living  !  living  !  "  cried  Bonneville,  as  exuberant 
in  his  joy  as  he  was  in  his  grief. 

"Yes,  living  enough,  thanks  to  you.  If  you  were  any 
other  than  you  are,  I  would  swear  to  you  never  to  forget 
it." 

"  You  are  soaked  !  " 

"Yes,  my  shoes  especially,  Bonneville.  The  water 
keeps  running  down,  running  down  in  a  most  disagreeable 
manner." 

"  And  no  fire  !  no  means  to  make  one  !  " 
vol.  I. —  23 


354  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Pooh  !  we  shall  get  warm  in  walking.  I  speak  in  the 
plural,  for  you  must  be  as  wet  as  I  am;  in  fact,  it 's  your 
third  bath,  — one  was  of  mud." 

"  Oh,  don't  think  of  me  !     Can  you  walk?  " 

"I  believe  so,  as  soon  as  I  empty  my  shoes." 

Bonneville  helped  Petit-Pierre  to  get  rid  of  the  water 
which  filled  her  shoes.  Then  he  took  off  his  own  thick 
jacket,  and  having  wrung  the  water  from  it,  he  put  it  over 
her  shoulders,  saying  :  — 

"  Now  for  Benaste,  and  fast,  too  !  " 

"Ha!  Bonneville,"  exclaimed  Petit-Pierre;  "a  fine  gain 
we  have  made  by  trying  to  avoid  that  camp-fire  which 
would  be  everything  to  us  just  now  !  " 

"We  can't  go  back  and  deliver  ourselves  up,"  said 
Bonneville,  with  a  look  of  despair. 

"  Nonsense  !  don't  take  my  little  joke  as  a  reproach. 
What  an  ill-regulated  mind  you  have  !  Come,  let  us 
march,  march  !  Now  that  I  use  my  legs  I  feel  I  am  drying 
up;  in  ten  minutes  I  shall  begin  to  perspire." 

There  was  no  need  to  hasten  Bonneville.  He  advanced 
so  rapidly  that  Petit-Pierre  could  barely  keep  up  with 
him  ;  and  from  time  to  time  she  was  forced  to  remind  him 
that  her  legs  were  not  as  long  as  his. 

But  Bonneville  could  not  recover  from  the  shock  of 
emotion  caused  by  the  accident  to  his  young  companion, 
and  he  now  completely  lost  his  head  on  discovering  that, 
among  these  bushes  he  once  knew  so  well,  he  had  missed  his 
way.  A  dozen  times  he  had  stopped  as  he  entered  a  "  line  " 
path  and  looked  about  him,  and  each  time,  after  shaking 
his  head,  he  plunged  onward  in  a  sort  of  frenzy. 

At  last  Petit-Pierre,  who  could  scarcely  keep  up  with 
him,  except  by  running,  said,  as  she  noticed  his  increasing 
agitation  :  — 

"Tell  me  what  is  the  matter,  dear  count." 

"The  matter  is  that  I  am  a  wretched  man,"  said  Bonne- 
ville. "I  relied  too  much  on  my  knowledge  of  these 
localities,   and  —  and  —  " 


PETIT-PIERRE    MAKES    A    GOOD    MEAL.  355 

"We  have  lost  our  way?  " 

"I  fear  so." 

"And  I  am  sure  of  it.  See,  here  is  a  branch  I  remem- 
ber breaking  when  we  passed  here  just  now  ;  we  are  turn- 
ing in  a  circle.  You  see  how  I  profit  by  your  lessons, 
Bonneville,"  added  Petit-Pierre,  triumphantly. 

"Ah!"  said  Bonneville;  "I  see  what  set  me  wrong." 

"What  was  it?" 

"  When  we  left  the  water  I  landed  on  the  side  we  had 
just  left,  and  in  my  agitation  at  your  accident,  I  did  not 
notice  the  mistake." 

"  So  that  our  plunge  bath  was  absolutely  useless  !  "  cried 
Petit-Pierre,  laughing  heartily. 

"Oh!  for  God's  sake,  Madame,  don't  laugh  like  that; 
your  gayety  cuts  me  to  the  heart." 

"Well,  it  warms  me." 

"Then  you  are  cold?  " 

"A  little;  but  that 's  not  the  worst." 

"  What  is  worse?  " 

"  Why,  for  half  an  hour  you  have  not  dared  to  tell  me 
we  are  lost,  and  for  half  an  hour  I  've  not  dared  to  tell 
you  that  my  legs  seem  to  be  giving  way  and  refusing  to  do 
their  duty." 

"Then  what  is  to  become  of  us? " 

"  Well,  well  !  am  I  to  play  your  part  as  man  and  give 
you  courage?  So  be  it.  The  council  is  open;  what  is 
your  opinion?  " 

"That  we  cannot  reach  Benaste  to-night." 

"Next?" 

"That  we  must  try  to  get  to  the  nearest  farm-house 
before  daylight." 

"Very  good,"  said  Petit-Pierre.  "Have  you  any  idea 
of  where  we  are?  " 

"  No  stars  in  the  sky,  no  moon  —  " 

"And  no  compass,"  added  Petit-Pierre,  laughing,  and 
trying  by  a  joke  to  revive  her  companion's  nerve. 

"Wait." 


356  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Ah  !  you  have  an  idea,  I  'm  sure  !  " 

"I  happened  to  notice  the  vane  on  the  castle  just  at 
dusk;  the  wind  was  east." 

Bonneville  wet  his  finger  in  his  mouth  and  held  it  up. 

"What's  that  for?" 

" A  weathercock.  There's  the  north,"  he  said,  unhesi- 
tatingly; "if  we  walk  in  the  teeth  of  the  wind  we  shall 
come  out  on  the  plain  near  Saint-Philbert." 

"Yes,  by  walking;  but  that's  the  difficulty." 

"  Will  you  let  me  carry  you  in  my  arms?  " 

"You  have  enough  to  carry  in  yourself,  my  poor 
Bonneville." 

The  duchess  rose  with  an  effort,  for  during  the  last  few 
moments  she  had  seated  herself,  or  rather  let  herself  drop, 
at  the  foot  of  a  tree. 

"There  !"  she  said;  "now  I  am  on  my  feet,  and  I  mean 
that  these  rebellious  legs  shall  carry  me.  I  will  conquer 
them  as  I  would  all  rebels;  that  'a  what  I  'm  here  for." 

And  the  brave  woman  made  four  or  five  steps;  but  her 
fatigue  was  so  great,  her  limbs  so  stiffened  by  the  icy 
bath  she  had  taken,  that  she  staggered  and  came  near 
falling.     Bonneville  sprang  to  support  her. 

"Heart  of  God!"  she  cried;  "let  me  alone,  Monsieur 
de  Bonneville.  I  will  put  this  miserable  body  that  God 
has  made  so  frail  and  delicate  on  the  level  of  the  soul  it 
covers.  Don't  give  it  any  help,  count;  don't  support  it. 
Ha  !  you  stagger,  do  you?  ha  !  you  are  giving  way?  Well, 
if  you  won't  march  at  the  common  step  you  shall  be  made  to 
charge,  and  we  '11  see  if  in  a  week  you  are  not  as  submis- 
sive to  my  will  as  a  beast  of  burden." 

So  saying,  and  joining  the  action  to  the  word,  Petit- 
Pierre  started  forward  at  such  a  pace  that  her  guide  had 
some  difficulty  in  overtaking  her.  But  the  last  effort 
exhausted  her;  and  when  Bonneville  did  rejoin  her,  she 
was  once  more  seated,  with  her  face  hidden  in  her  two 
hands.  Petit-Pierre  was  weeping,  —  weeping  with  anger 
rather  than  pain. 


PETIT-PIERRE    MAKES    A    GOOD    MEAL.  357 

"0  God  !  "  she  muttered;  "you  have  set  me  the  task  of 
a  giant,  but  you  have  given  me  only  the  strength  of  a 
woman." 

Willing  or  not,  Bonneville  took  Petit-Pierre  in  his  arms 
and  hurried  along.  The  words  that  Gaspard  had  said  to 
him  as  they  left  the  vaults  rang  in  his  ears.  He  felt  that 
so  delicate  a  body  could  not  bear  up  any  longer  under 
these  violent  shocks,  and  he  resolved  to  spend  his  last 
strength  in  putting  the  treasure  confided  to  him  in  a  place 
of  safety.  He  kuew  now  that  a  few  moments  wasted 
might  mean  death  to  his  companion. 

For  over  fifteen  minutes  the  brave  man  kept  on  rapidly. 
His  hat  fell  off,  but  no  longer  caring  for  the  trail  he  left 
behind  him,  the  count  did  not  stop  to  pick  it  up.  He  felt 
the  body  of  the  duchess  shuddering  with  cold  in  his  arms, 
he  heard  her  teeth  chattering;  and  the  sound  spurred  him 
as  the  applause  of  a  crowd  spurs  a  race-horse,  and  gave 
him  superhuman  energy. 

But,  little  by  little,  this  fictitious  strength  gave  way. 
Bonneville's  legs  would  only  obey  him  mechanically;  the 
blood  seemed  to  settle  on  his  chest  and  choked  him.  He 
felt  his  heart  swell;  he  could  not  breathe;  his  breath 
rattled;  a  cold  sweat  poured  from  his  brow;  his  arteries 
throbbed  as  if  his  head  must  burst.  From  time  to  time  a 
thick  cloud  covered  his  eyes,  marbled  with  flame.  Soon 
he  staggered  at  every  slope,  stumbled  at  every  stone;  his 
failing  knees,  powerless  to  straighten  themselves,  could 
only  go  forward  by  a  mighty  effort. 

"Stop  !  stop  !  Monsieur  de  Bonneville,"  cried  Petit- 
Pierre  ;  "  stop,  I  command  you  !  " 

"No,  I  will  not  stop,"  replied  Bonneville.  "I  have  still 
some  strength,  thank  God  !  and  I  shall  use  it  to  the  end. 
Stop?  stop?  when  we  are  almost  into  port?  when  at  the 
cost  of  a  little  further  effort  I  shall  put  you  in  safety? 
There  !  see  that  ;  look  there  !  " 

And  as  he  spoke  they  saw  at  the  end  of  the  path  they 
were   following  a  broad  band  of  ruddy  li&ht  which   rose 


358  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

above  the  horizon;  and  on  that  glow  a  black  and  angular 
shape  stood  out  distinctly,  indicating  a  house.  Day  was 
dawning.  They  had  now  reached  the  end  of  the  wood  and 
were  at  the  edge  of  fields. 

But  just  as  Bonneville  gave  that  cry  of  joy,  his  legs 
bent  under  him;  he  fell  to  his  knees.  Then,  with  a  last 
supreme  effort,  he  cast  himself  gently  backward  as  if  at 
the  moment  when  his  consciousness  left  him  he  meant  to 
spare  his  precious  burden  from  the  dangers  of  a  fall. 
Petit-Pierre  released  herself  from  his  grasp  and  stood  at 
his  feet,  but  so  feebly  that  she  seemed  scarcely  stronger 
than  her  companion.  She  tried  to  raise  the  count,  but 
could  not  do  it.  Bonneville,  for  his  part,  put  his  hands 
to  his  mouth,  —  no  doubt  to  give  the  owl's  cry  of  the 
Chouans;  but  his  breath  failed  him,  and  he  scarcely 
uttered  the  words,  "Don't  forget  —  "  before  he  fainted 
entirely. 

The  house  they  had  seen  was  not  more  than  seven  or 
eight  hundred  steps  from  the  place  where  Bonneville  had 
fallen.  Petit-Pierre  determined  to  go  there  and  ask  at  all 
risks  for  assistance  to  her  friend.  Making  a  supreme  effort 
she  started  in  that  direction.  Just  as  she  passed  a  cross- 
way  Petit-Pierre  saw  a  man  on  one  of  the  paths  that  led 
to  it.     She  called  to  him,  but  he  did  not  turn  his  head. 

Then  Petit-Pierre,  either  by  a  sudden  inspiration  or 
because  she  gave  that  meaning  to  Bonneville's  last  words, 
utilized  a  lesson  the  count  had  taught  her.  Putting  her 
hands  to  her  mouth  she  uttered,  as  best  she  could,  the  cry 
of  the  screech-owl. 

The  man  stopped  instantly,  turned  back,  and  came  to 
Petit-Pierre. 

"My  friend,"  she  cried,  as  soon  as  he  came  within  reach 
of  her  voice,  "if  you  need  gold,  I  will  give  it  to  you;  but, 
for  God's  sake,  come  and  help  me  save  an  unfortunate  man 
who  is  dying." 

Then,  with  all  her  remaining  strength,  and  seeing  that 
the  man  was  following  her,  Petit-Pierre  hurried  back  to 


PETIT-PIERRE    MAKES    A    GOOD    MEAL.  359 

Bonneville  and  raised  his  head  by  an  effort.  The  count 
was  still  unconscious. 

As  soon  as  the  new-comer  reached  them  and  glanced  at 
the  prostrate  man,  he  said  :  — 

"  You  need  not  offer  me  gold  to  induce  me  to  help  Mon- 
sieur le  Comte  de  Bonneville." 

Petit-Pierre  looked  at  the  man  attentively. 

"Jean  Oullier  !  "  she  cried,  recognizing  the  Marquis  de 
Souday's  keeper  in  the  dawning  light,  — •  "  Jean  Oullier, 
can  you  find  a  safe  refuge  for  my  friend  and  for  me  close 
by?" 

"There  is  no  house  but  this  within  a  mile  or  two,"  he 
said. 

He  spoke  of  it  with  repugnance,  but  Petit-Pierre  either 
did  not  or  would  not  notice  the  tone. 

"You  must  guide  me  and  carry  him." 

"  Down  there  ?  "  cried  Jean  Oullier. 

"Yes;  are  not  they  royalists?  —  the  persons  who  live  in 
that  house,  I  mean." 

"I  don't  know  yet,"  said  Jean  Oullier. 

"Go  on;  I  put  our  lives  in  your  hands,  Jean  Oullier, 
and  I  know  that  you  deserve  my  utmost  confidence." 

Jean  Oullier  took  Bonneville,  still  unconscious,  on  his 
shoulders,  and  led  Petit-Pierre  by  the  hand.  He  walked 
toward  the  house,  which  was  that  belonging  to  Joseph 
Picaut  and  his  sister-in-law,  the  widow  of  Pascal. 

Jean  Oullier  mounted  the  hedge-bank  as  easily  as  though 
he  were  only  carrying  a  game-bag,  instead  of  the  body  of 
a  man.  Once  in  the  orchard,  however,  he  advanced  cau- 
tiously. Every  one  was  still  sleeping  in  Joseph's  part  of 
the  house;  but  it  was  not  so  in  the  widow's  room.  In  the 
gleam  from  the  windows  a  shadow  could  be  seen  passing 
to  and  fro  behind  the  curtains. 

Jean  Oullier  seemed  now  to  decide  between  two  courses. 

"Faith  !  weighing  one  against  the  other,"  he  muttered 
to  himself,  "I  like  it  as  well  this  way." 

And  he  walked  resolutely  to  that  part  of  the  house  which 


360  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

belonged  to  Pascal.  When  he  reached  the  door  he  opened 
it.  Pascal's  body  lay  on  the  bed.  The  widow  had  lighted 
two  candles,  and  was  praying  beside  the  dead.  Hearing 
the  door  open,  she  rose  and  turned  round. 

"Widow  Pascal,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  without  releasing 
his  burden  or  the  hand  of  Petit-Pierre,  "  I  saved  your  life 
to-night  at  the  Viette  des  Biques." 

Marianne  looked  at  him  in  astonishment,  as  if  trying  to 
recall  her  recollections. 

"  Don't  you  believe  me?  " 

"Yes,  Jean  Oullier,  I  believe  you;  I  know  you  are  not  a 
man  to  tell  a  lie,  were  it  even  to  save  your  life.  Besides,  I 
heard  the  shot  and  I  suspected  whose  hand  fired  it." 

"Widow  Pascal,  will  you  avenge  your  husband  and 
make  your  fortune  at  one  stroke?     I  bring  you  the  means." 

"How?" 

"  Here,"  continued  Jean  Oullier,  "  are  Madame  la  Duchesse 
de  Berry  and  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  Bonneville,  who  might 
have  died,  perhaps,  of  hunger  and  fatigue,  if  I  had  not 
come,  as  I  have,  to  ask  you  to  shelter  them;  here  they 
are." 

The  widow  looked  at  all  three  in  stupefaction,  yet  with 
a  visible  interest. 

"This  head,  which  you  see  here,"  continued  Jean  Oullierr 
"  is  worth  its  weight  in  gold.  You  can  deliver  it  up  if  you 
so  please,  and,  as  I  told  you,  avenge  your  husband  and 
make  your  fortune  by  that  act." 

"Jean  Oullier,"  replied  the  widow,  in  a  grave  voice*- 
"  God  commands  us  to  do  charity  to  all,  whether  great  or 
small.  Two  unfortunate  persons  have  come  to  my  door; 
I  shall  not  repulse  them.  Two  exiles  ask  me  to  shelter 
them,  and  my  house  shall  crumble  about  my  ears  before  I 
betray  them."  Then,  with  a  simple  gesture,  to  which  her 
action  gave  a  splendid  grandeur,  she  added  :  — 

"Enter,  Jean  Oullier;  enter  fearlessly,  — you,  and  those 
who  are  with  you." 

They  entered.      While   Petit  Pierre  was   helping   Jean 


PETIT-PIERRE   MAKES    A    GOOD    MEAL.  361 

Oullier  to  place  the  count  in  a  chair,  the  old  keeper  said  to 
her  in  a  low  voice  :  — 

"Madame,  put  back  your  own  fair  hair  behind  your  wig; 
it  made  me  guess  the  truth  I  have  told  this  woman,  but 
others  ought  not  to  see  it." 


362  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 


XL. 

EQUALITY    IN    DEATH. 

The  same  day,  about  two  in  the  afternoon,  Courtin  left  La 
Logerie  to  go  to  Machecoul  under  pretence  of  buying  a 
draught-ox,  but  in  reality  to  get  news  of  the  events  of  the 
night,  —  events  in  which  the  municipal  functionary  had  a 
special  interest,  as  our  readers  will  fully  understand. 

When  he  reached  the  ford  at  Pont-Farcy,  he  found  some 
men  lifting  the  body  of  Tinguy's  son,  and  around  them 
several  women  and  children,  who  were  gazing  at  the  dead 
body  with  the  curiosity  natural  to  their  sex  and  years. 
When  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie,  stimulating  his  pony  by  a 
stick  with  a  leathern  thong,  which  he  carried  in  his  hand, 
made  it  enter  the  river,  all  eyes  were  turned  upon  him, 
and  the  conversation  ceased  as  if  by  magic,  though  up  to 
that  moment  it  had  been  very  eager  and  animated. 

"Well,  what's  going  on,  gars?"  asked  Courtin,  making 
his  animal  cross  the  river  diagonally  so  as  to  reach  land 
precisely  opposite  to  the  group. 

"A  death,"  replied  one  of  the  men,  with  the  laconic 
brevity  of  a  Vendéan  peasant. 

Courtin  looked  at  the  corpse  and  saw  that  it  wore  a 
uniform. 

"Luckily,"  he  said,  "it  isn't  any  one  who  belongs  about 
here." 

"You're  mistaken.  Monsieur  Courtin,"  replied  the 
gloomy  voice  of  a  man  in  a  brown  jacket. 

The  title  of  monsieur  thus  given  to  him,  and  given,  too, 
with  a  certain  emphasis,  was  in  no  wise  flattering  to  the 
farmer  of  La  Logerie.    Under  the  circumstances  and  in  the 


EQUALITY    IN    DEATH.  363 

phase  of  public  feeling  La  Vendée  had  just  entered,  he 
knew  that  this  title  of  monsieur,  in  the-  mouth  of  a  peas- 
ant, when  it  was  not  given  as  a  testimony  of  respect,  meant 
either  an  insult  or  a  threat,  —  two  things  which  affected 
Courtin  quite  differently. 

In  short,  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie  did  himself  the  justice 
not  to  take  the  title  thus  bestowed  upon  him  as  a  mark  of 
consideration,  and  he  therefore  resolved  to  be  prudent. 

"And  yet  I  think,"  he  said,  in  a  mild  and  gentle  voice, 
"that  he  wears  a  chasseur's  uniform." 

"  Pooh  !  uniform  !  "  retorted  the  same  peasant  ;  "  as  if 
you  did  n't  know  that  the  man-hunt"  (this  was  the  name 
the  Vendéan  peasantry  gave  to  the  conscription)  "doesn't 
respect  our  sons  and  brothers  more  than  it  does  those  of 
others.  It  seems  to  me  you  ought  to  know  that,  mayor  as 
you  are." 

Again  there  was  silence, — a  silence  so  oppressive  to 
Courtin  that  he  once  more  interrupted  it.  "Does  any  one 
know  the  name  of  the  poor  gars  who  has  perished  so  unfor- 
tunately? "  he  asked,  making  immense  but  fruitless  efforts 
to  force  à  tear  to  his  eye. 

No  one  answered.  The  silence  became  more  and  more 
significant. 

"Does  any  one  know  if  there  were  other  victims?  Was 
any  one  killed  among  our  own  gars  ?  I  hear  a  number  of 
shots  were  fired." 

"As  for  other  victims,"  said  the  same  peasant,  "I  know 
as  yet  of  only  one,  — this  one  here;  though  perhaps  it  is  a 
sin  to  talk  of  such  victims  beside  a  Christian  corpse." 

As  he  spoke  the  peasant  turned  aside  and,  fixing  his  eyes 
on  Courtin,  he  pointed  with  his  finger  to  the  body  of  Jean 
Oullier's  dog,  lying  on  the  bank,  partly  in  the  water  which 
flowed  over  it.  Maître  Courtin  turned  pale  ;  he  coughed, 
as  if  an  invisible  hand  had  clutched  his  throat. 

"  What 's  that  ?  "  he  said  ;  "  a  dog  ?  Ha  !  if  we  had  only 
to  mourn  for  that  kind  of  victim  our  tears  would  be  few." 

"Nay,  nay,"  said   the  man  in  the  brown  jacket;    "the 


364  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

blood  of  a  dog  must  be  paid  for,  Maître  Courtin,  like 
everything  else.  I  'm  certain  that  the  master  of  poor 
Pataud  won't  forget  the  man  who  shot  his  dog,  coming  out 
of  Montaigu,  with  leaden  wolf-balls,  three  of  which  entered 
his  body." 

As  he  finished  speaking  the  man,  apparently  thinking 
he  had  exchanged  words  enough  with  Courtin,  did  not  wait 
for  any  answer,  but  turned  on  his  heel,  passed  up  a  bank, 
and  disappeared  behind  its  hedge.  As  for  the  other  men, 
they  resumed  their  march  with  the  body.  The  women  and 
children  followed  behind  tumultuously,  praying  aloud. 
Courtin  was  left  alone. 

"  Bah  !  "  he  said  to  himself,  jabbing  his  pony  with  his 
one  spur  ;  "  before  I  pay  for  what  Jean  Oullier  lays  to  my 
account,  he  '11  have  to  escape  the  clutches  which,  thanks 
to  me,  are  on  him  at  this  moment,  —  it  won't  be  easy, 
though,  of  course,   it  is  possible." 

Maître  Courtin  continued  his  way;  but  his  curiosity 
was  greater  than  ever,  and  he  felt  he  could  not  wait 
till  the  amble  of  his  steed  took  him  to  Machecoul  before 
satisfying  it. 

He  happened  at  this  moment  to  be  passing  the  cross  of 
La  Bertaudière,  near  which  the  road  leading  to  the  house 
of  the  Picauts  joined  the  main  road.  He  thought  of 
Pascal,  who  could  tell  him  the  news  better  than  any  one, 
as  he  had  sent  him  to  guide  the  troops  the  night  before. 

"  What  a  jackass  I  am  !  "  he  cried,  speaking  to  himself. 
"  It  will  only  take  me  half  an  hour  out  of  my  way,  and  I 
can  hear  the  truth  from  a  mouth  that  won't  lie  to  me. 
I  '11  go  to  Pascal;  he  '11  tell  me  the  result  of  the  trick." 

Maître  Courtin  turned,  therefore,  to  the  right;  and  five 
minutes  later  he  crossed  the  little  orchard  and  made  his 
entrance  over  a  heap  of  manure  into  the  courtyard  of 
Pascal's  dwelling. 

Joseph,  sitting  on  a  horse-collar,  was  smoking  his  pipe 
before  the  door  of  his  half  of  the  house.  Seeing  who  his 
visitor  was  he  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  disturb  him- 


EQUALITY   IN   DEATH.  365 

self.  Courtin,  who  had  an  admirably  keen  faculty  for 
seeing  all  without  appearing  to  notice  anything,  fastened 
his  pony  to  one  of  the  iron  rings  that  were  screwed  into 
the  wall.     Then,  turning  to  Joseph,  he  said  :  — 

"  Is  your  brother  at  home  ?  " 

"Yes,  he  is  still  there,"  replied  Picaut,  dwelling  on  the 
word  still  in  a  manner  that  seemed  a  little  strange  to  the 
mayor  of  La  Logerie  ;  "  do  you  want  him  again  to-day  to 
guide  the  red-breeches  to  Souday?" 

Courtin  bit  his  lips  and  made  no  reply  to  Joseph,  while 
to  himself  he  said,  as  he  knocked  at  the  door  of  the 
other  Picaut  :  — 

"How  came  that  fool  of  a  Pascal  to  tell  his  rascally 
brother  it  was  I  who  sent  him  on  that  errand  ?  Upon  my 
soul,  one  can't  do  anything  in  these  parts  without  every- 
body gabbling  about  it  within  twenty- four  hours  !  " 

Courtin's  monologue  hindered  him  from  noticing  that 
his  knock  was  not  immediately  answered,  and  that  the 
door,  contrary  to  the  trustful  habits  of  the  peasantry,  was 
bolted. 

At  last,  however,  the  door  opened,  and  when  Courtin's 
eyes  fell  upon  the  scene  before  him  he  was  so  unpre- 
pared for  what  he  saw  that  he  actually  recoiled  from  the 
threshold. 

"  Who  is  dead  here  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Look  !  "  replied  the  widow,  without  leaving  her  seat  in 
the  ehimney-corner,  which  she  had  resumed  after  opening 
the  door. 

Courtin  turned  his  eyes  again  to  the  bed,  and  though  he 
could  see  beneath  the  sheet  only  the  outline  of  a  man's 
form,  he  guessed  the  truth. 

"Pascal  !  "  he  cried;  "  is  it  Pascal  ?" 

"I  thought  you  knew  it,"  said  the  widow. 

"I  ?" 

"Yes,  you,  —you,  who  are  the  chief  cause  of  his  death." 

"I  ?  —  T  ? "  replied  Courtin,  remembering  what  Joseph 
had  just  said  to  him,  and  feeling  it  all-important  for  his 


366  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

own  safety  to  deny  his  share  in  the  matter.  "I  swear  to 
you,  on  the  word  of  an  honest  man,  that  I  have  not  seen 
your  husband  for  over  a  week." 

"Don't  swear,"  replied  the  widow.  "Pascal  never 
swore;    neither  did  he  lie." 

"  But  who  told  you  that  I  had  seen  him  ?  "  persisted 
Courtin.     "  It  is  too  bad  to  blame  me  for  nothing  !  " 

"Don't  lie  in  presence  of  the  dead,  Monsieur  Courtin," 
said  Marianne;  "it  will  bring  down  evil  upon  you." 

"I  am  not  lying,"  stammered  the  man. 

"Pascal  left  this  house  to  meet  you;  you  engaged  him 
as  guide  for  the  soldiers." 

Courtin  made  a  movement  of  denial. 

"Oh  !  I  don't  blame  you  for  that,"  continued  the  widow, 
looking  at  a  peasant-girl,  about  twenty-five  to  thirty  years 
of  age,  who  was  winding  her  distaff  in  the  opposite  corner 
of  the  fireplace  ;  "  it  was  his  duty  to  give  assistance  to 
those  who  want  to  prevent  our  country  from  being  torn  by 
civil  war." 

"That's  my  object,  my  sole  object,"  replied  Courtin, 
lowering  his  voice,  so  that  the  young  peasant-woman  hardly 
heard  him.  "  I  wish  the  government  would  rid  us  once  for 
all  of  these  fomenters  of  trouble,  — these  nobles  who  crush 
us  with  their  wealth  in  peace,  and  massacre  us  when  it 
comes  to  war.  I  am  doing  my  best  for  this  end,  Mistress 
Picaut;  but  I  daren't  boast  of  it,  you  see,  because  you 
never  know  what  the  people  about  here  may  do  to  you." 

"Why  should  you  complain  if  they  strike  you  from 
behind,  when  you  hide  yourself  in  striking  them  ?  "  said 
Marianne,  with  a  look  of  the  deepest  contempt. 

"Damn  it  !  one  does  as  one  dares,  Mistress  Picaut," 
replied  Courtin,  with  some  embarrassment.  "It  is  not 
given  to  all  the  world  to  be  brave  and  bold  like  your  poor 
husband.  But  we  '11  revenge  him,  that  good  Pascal  !  we  '11 
revenge  him.     I  swear  it  to  you  !  " 

"Thank  you;  but  I  don't  want  you  to  meddle  in  that, 
Monsieur  Courtin,"  said  the  widow,  in  a  voice  that  seemed 


EQUALITY    IN    DEATH.  3Ô7 

almost  threatening,  so  hard  and  bitter  was  it.  "Yon  have 
meddled  too  much  already  in  the  affairs  of  this  poor  house- 
hold.    Spend  your  good  offices  on  others  in  future." 

"As  you  please,  Mistress  Picaut.  Alas  !  T  loved  your 
good  husband  so  truly  that  1  '11  do  anything  I  can  to  please 
you."  Then,  suddenly  turning  toward  the  young  peasant- 
woman,  whom  he  had  seemed  not  to  notice  up  to  that  time, 
"Who  is  this  young  woman  ?"  he  said. 

"A  cousin  of  mine,  who  came  this  morning  from  Port- 
Saint-Père,  to  help  me  in  paying  the  last  duties  to  my  poor 
Pascal,  and  to  keep  me  company." 

"From  Port-Saint-Père  this  morning!  Ha,  ha  !  Mistress 
Picaut,  she  must  be  a  good  walker,  if  she  did  that  distance 
so  quickly." 

The  poor  widow,  unused  to  lying,  having  never  in  her 
life  had  occasion  to  lie,  lied  badly.  She  bit  her  lips,  and 
gave  Courtin  an  angry  look,  which,  happily,  he  did  not 
see,  being  occupied  at  the  moment  in  a  close  examination 
of  a  peasant's  costume  which  was  drying  before  the  fire. 
The  two  articles  which  seemed  to  attract  him  most  were  a 
pair  of  shoes  and  a  shirt.  The  shoes,  though  iron-nailed 
and  made  of  common  leather,  were  of  a  shape  not  common 
among  cottagers,  and  the  shirt  was  of  the  finest  linen 
cambric. 

"  Soft  stuff  !  soft  stuff  !  "  he  muttered,  rubbing  the  deli- 
cate tissue  between  his  fingers;  "it 's  my  opinion  it  won't 
scratch  the  skin  of  whoever  wears  it." 

The  young  peasant-woman  now  thought  it  time  to  come 
to  the  help  of  the  widow,  who  seemed  on  thorns  and  whose 
forehead  was  clouding  over  in  a  visibly  threatening  way. 

"Yes,"  she  said;  "those  are  some  old  clothes  I  bought 
of  a  dealer  in  Nantes,  to  make  over  for  my  little  nephew." 

"And  you  washed  them  before  sewing  them?  Faith, 
you're  right,  my  girl  !  for,"  added  Courtin,  looking  fixedly 
at  her,  "  no  one  knows  who  has  worn  the  garments  of  those 
old-clothes  dealers,  —  it  may  have  been  a  prince,  or  it  may 
have  been  a  leper." 


368  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Maître  Courtin,"  interrupted  Marianne,  who  seemed 
annoyed  by  the  conversation,  "your  pony  is  getting 
restless." 

Courtin  listened. 

"If  I  didn't  hear  your  brother-in-law  walking  in  the 
garret  overhead  I  should  think  he  was  teasing  it,  the  ill- 
natured  fellow  !  " 

At  this  new  proof  of  the  essentially  detective  nature  of 
the  mayor  of  La  Logerie,  the  young  peasant-woman  turned 
pale;  and  her  paleness  increased  when  she  heard  Courtin, 
who  rose  to  look  after  his  pony  through  the  casement, 
mutter,  as  if  to  himself:  — 

"  Why,  no  ;  there  he  is,  that  fellow  !  He  is  tickling  my 
horse  with  the  end  of  his  whip."  Then,  returning  to  the 
widow,  he  said,  "Who  have  you  got  up  in  your  garret, 
mistress  ?" 

The  young  woman  was  about  to  answer  that  Joseph  had  a 
wife  and  children,  and  that  the  garret  was  common  to  all; 
but  the  widow  did  not  give  her  time  to  begin  the  sentence. 

"Maître  Courtin,"  she  said,  standing  up,  "are  not  your 
questions  coming  to  an  end  soon  ?  I  hate  spies,  I  warn 
you,  whether  they  are  white  or  red." 

"Since  when  is  a  friendly  talk  among  friends  called 
spying?  Whew  !  you  have  grown  very  suspicious,  all  of 
a  sudden." 

The  eyes  of  the  younger  woman  entreated  the  widow  to 
be  more  cautious;  but  her  impetuous  hostess  could  no 
longer  contain  herself. 

"  Among  friends  !  friends,  indeed  !  "  she  said.  "  Find 
your  friends  among  your  fellows,  —  I  mean  among  cowards 
and  traitors;  and  know,  once  for  all,  that  the  widow  of 
Pascal  Picaut  is  not  among  them.  Go,  and  leave  me  to 
my  grief,  which  you  have  disturbed  too  long." 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  Courtin,  with  an  admirably  played 
good-humor;  "my  presence  must  be  unpleasant  to  you.  I 
ought  to  have  thought  of  that  before,  and  I  beg  your  par- 
don  for  not  having  done  so.     You  are  determined  to  see  in 


EQUALITY    IN   DEATH.  369 

me  the  cause  of  your  husband's  death,  and  that  grieves 
me;  oh!  it  grieves  me,  Mistress  Picaut,  for  I  loved  him 
heartily  and  wouldn't  have  harmed  him  for  the  world. 
But,  since  you  feel  as  you  do,  and  drive  me  out  of  your 
house,   I'll  go,   I'll  go;  don't  take  on  like  that." 

Just  then  the  widow,  who  seemed  more  and  more  dis- 
turbed, glanced  rapidly  at  the  younger  woman  and  showed 
her  by  that  glance  the  bread-box,  which  stood  beside  the 
door.  On  that  box  was  a  pocket-inkstand,  which  had,  no 
doubt,  been  used  to  write  the  order  Jean  Oullier  had  taken 
in  the  morning  to  the  Marquis  de  Souday.  This  inkstand 
was  of  green  morocco,  and  with  it  lay  a  sort  of  tube,  con- 
taining all  that  was  necessary  for  writing  a  letter.  As 
Courtin  went  to  the  door  he  could  not  fail  to  see  the  ink- 
stand and  a  few  scattered  papers  that  lay  beside  it. 

The  young  woman  understood  the  sign  and  saw  the  dan- 
ger; and  before  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie  turned  round  she 
had  passed,  light  as  a  fawn,  behind  him,  and  seated  her- 
self on  the  bread-box,  so  as  to  hide  the  unlucky  implement 
completely.  Courtin  seemed  to  pay  no  attention  to  this 
manoeuvre. 

"Well,  good-bye  to  you,  Mistress  Picaut,"  he  said.  "I 
have  lost  a  comrade  in  your  husband  whom  I  greatly 
valued;  you  doubt  that,  but  time  will  prove  it  to  you." 

The  widow  did  not  answer;  she  had  said  to  Courtin  all 
she  had  to  say,  and  she  now  seemed  to  take  no  notice  of 
him.  Motionless,  with  crossed  arms,  she  was  gazing  at 
the  corpse,  whose  rigid  form  was  defined  under  the  sheet 
that  covered  it. 

"Ho!  so  you  are  there,  my  pretty  girl,"  said  Courtin, 
stopping  before  the  younger  woman. 

"It  was  too  hot  near  the  fire." 

"Take  good  care  of  your  cousin,  my  girl,"  continued 
Courtin;  "this  death  has  made  her  a  wild  beast.  She  is 
almost  as  savage  as  the  she-wolves  of  Machecoul  !  Well, 
spin  away,  my  dear;  though  you  may  twist  your  spindle 
or  turn  your  wheel  as  best  you  can,  and  you  '11  never  weave 
vol    i.  —  24 


370  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

such  fine  linen  as  you've  got  there  in  that  shirt."  Then 
he  left  the  room  and  shut  the  door,  muttering,  "Fine 
linen,   very  fine  !  " 

"  Quick  !  quick  !  hide  all  those  things  !  "  cried  the  widow. 
"He  has  gone  out  only  to  come  back." 

Quick  as  thought  the  young  woman  pushed  the  inkstand 
between  the  box  and  the  wall;  but  rapid  as  the  movement 
was,  it  was  still  too  late.  The  upper  half  of  the  door  was 
suddenly  opened,  and  Courtin's  head  appeared  above  the 
lower. 

"I  've  startled  you;  beg  pardon,"  said  Courtin.  "I  did 
it  from  a  good  motive  ;  I  want  to  know  when  the  funeral 
takes  place." 

"  To-morrow,  I  think,  "  said  the  young  woman. 

"  Will  you  go  away,  you  villanous  rascal  !  "  cried  the 
widow,  springing  toward  him,  and  brandishing  the  heavy 
tongs  with  which  she  moved  the  logs  in  her  great  fireplace. 

Courtin,  thoroughly  frightened,  withdrew.  Mistress 
Picaut,  as  Courtin  called  her,  closed  the  upper  shutter 
violently. 

The  mayor  of  La  Logerie  unfastened  his  pony,  picked 
up  a  handful  of  straw,  and  cleaned  off  the  saddle,  which 
Joseph,  maliciously  and  out  of  hatred,  —  a  hatred  which 
he  inculcated  to  his  children  against  the  "curs,"  —  had 
smeared  with  cows'  dung  from  pommel  to  crupper.  Then, 
without  complaining  or  retaliating,  as  if  the  accident  he 
had  just  remedied  was  a  perfectly  natural  one,  he  mounted 
his  steed  with  an  indifferent  air,  and  even  stopped  on  his 
way  through  the  orchard  to  see  if  the  apples  were  properly 
setting,  with  the  eye  of  a  connoisseur.  But  no  sooner  had 
he  reached  the  cross  of  La  Bertaudière  and  turned  his 
horse  into  the  high-road  toward  Machecoul  than  he  seized 
his  stick  by  the  thick  end,  and  using  the  leather  thong  on 
one  flank,  and  digging  his  single  spur  persistently  and 
furiously  into  the  other  flank  of  his  beast,  he  contrived  to 
make  that  animal  take  a  gait  of  which  it  looked  utterly 
incapable. 


EQUALITY    IN    DEATH.  371 

"  There,  he  's  gone  at  last  !  "  said  the  younger  peasant- 
woman,  who  had  watched  his  movements  from  the  window. 

"  Yes;  but  that  may  be  none  the  better  for  you,  Madame," 
said  the  widow. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"Oh  !     I  know  what  I  mean." 

"  Do  you  think  he  has  gone  to  denounce  us  ?  " 

"He  is  thought  to  be  capable  of  it.  I  know  nothing 
personally,  for  I  don't  concern  myself  in  such  gossip;  but 
his  evil  face  has  always  led  me  to  think  that  even  the 
Whites  didn't  do  him   injustice." 

"You  are  right,"  said  the  young  woman,  who  began  to 
be  uneasy;  "his  face  is  one  that  could  never  inspire 
confidence." 

"  Ah  !  Madame,  why  did  you  not  keep  Jean  Oullier  near 
you?"  said  the  widow.  "There's  an  honest  man,  and  a 
faithful  one." 

"I  had  orders  to  send  to  the  château  de  Souday.  He  is 
to  come  back  this  evening  with  horses  so  that  we  may 
leave  your  house  as  soon  as  possible,  for  I  know  we  increase 
your  sorrow  and  add  to  your  cares." 

The  widow  did  not  answer.  With  her  face  hidden  in 
her  hands,  she  was  weeping. 

"  Poor  woman  !  "  murmured  the  duchess  ;  "  your  tears  fall 
drop  by  drop  upon  my  heart,  where  each  leaves  a  painful 
furrow.  Alas  !  this  is  the  terrible,  the  inevitable  result  of 
revolutions.  It  is  on  the  head  of  those  who  make  them  that 
the  curse  of  all  this  blood  and  all  these  tears  must  fall." 

"  May  it  not  rather  fall,  if  God  is  just,  on  the  heads  of 
those  who  cause  them  ?  "  said  the  widow,  in  a  deep  and 
muffled  voice,  which  made  her  hearer  quiver. 

"  Do  you  hate  us  so  bitterly  ?  "  asked  the  latter,  sadly. 

"Yes,  I  hate  you,"  said  the  widow.  "How  can  you 
expect  me  to  love  you  ?  " 

"Alas  !  I  understand;  yes,  your  husband's  death  —  " 

"No,  you  do  not  understand,"  said  Marianne,  shaking 
her  head. 


372  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

The  younger  woman  made  a  sign  as  if  to  say,  "  Explain 
yourself.  " 

"No,"  said  the  widow,  "it  is  not  because  the  man  who 
for  fifteen  years  has  been  my  all  in  life  will  be  to-morrow 
in  his  bed  of  earth;  it  is  not  because  when  I  was  a  child  I 
witnessed  the  massacres  of  Lege,  and  saw  my  dear  ones 
killed  beneath  your  banner,  and  felt  their  blood  spattering 
my  face;  it  is  not  because  for  ten  whole  years  those  who 
fought  for  your  ancestors  persecuted  mine,  burned  their 
houses,  ravaged  their  fields,  —  no,  I  repeat,  it  is  not  for 
that,  nor  all  that,  that  I  hate  you." 

"  Then  why  is  it  ?  " 

"Because  it  seems  to  me  an  impious  thing  that  a  family, 
a  race,  should  claim  the  place  of  God,  our  only  master  here 
below,  —  the  master  of  us  all,  such  as  we  are,  great  and 
small  ;  impious  to  declare  that  we  are  born  the  slaves  of 
that  family,  to  suppose  that  a  people  it  has  tortured  have 
not  the  right  to  turn  upon  their  bed  of  suffering  unless 
they  first  obtain  permission  !  You  belong  to  that  selfish 
family;  you  have  come  of  that  tyrant  race.  It  is  for  that 
I  hate  you." 

''And  yet  you  have  given  me  shelter;  you  have  laid 
aside  your  grief  to  lavish  care  not  only  upon  me,  but  also 
upon  him  who  accompanies  me.  You  have  taken  your 
own  clothes  to  cover  me;  you  have  given  him  the  clothes 
of  your  poor  dead  husband,  for  whom  I  pray  here  below, 
and  who,  I  hope,  will  pray  for  me  in  heaven." 

"All  that  will  not  hinder  me,  after  you  have  once  left 
my  house,  after  I  have  fulfilled  my  duty  of  hospitality,  — 
all  that  will  not  prevent  me  from  praying  ardently  that 
those  who  are  pursuing  you  may  capture  you." 

"  Then  why  not  deliver  me  up  to  them,  if  such  are  really 
your  feelings  ?  " 

"Because  those  feelings  are  less  powerful  than  my 
respect  for  misfortune,  my  reverence  for  an  oath,  my  wor- 
ship of  hospitality;  because  I  have  sworn  that  you  shall 
be  saved  this  day  ;  and  also  because,  perhaps,  I  hope  that 


EQUALITY    IN    DEATH.  373 

what  you  have  seen  here  may  be  a  lesson  not  wholly  lost 
upon  you,  —  a  lesson  that  may  disgust  you  with  your  pro- 
jects.    For  you  are  humane;  you  are  good.     I  see  it  !  " 

"What  should  make  me  renounce  projects  for  which  I 
have  lived  these  eighteen  months?" 

"This  !  "  said  the  widow. 

And  with  a  rapid,  sudden  movement,  like  all  she  made, 
she  pulled  away  the  sheet  that  covered  the  dead,  disclosing 
the  livid  face  and  the  ghastly  wound  surrounded  by  purple 
blotches. 

The  younger  woman  turned  aside.  In  spite  of  her  firm- 
ness, of  which  she  had  given  so  many  proofs,  she  could 
not  bear  that  dreadful  sight. 

"Reflect,  Madame,"  continued  the  widow;  "reflect  that 
before  what  you  are  attempting  can  be  accomplished,  many 
and  many  a  poor  man,  whose  only  crime  is  to  have  loved 
you  well, —  many  fathers,  many  sons,  many  brothers,  — 
will  be,  like  this  one,  lying  dead.  Reflect  that  many 
widows,  many  sisters,  many  orphans  will  be  weeping  and 
mourning,  as  I  do,  for  him  who  was  all  their  love  and  all 
their  stay  !  " 

"  My  God  !  my  God  !  "  exclaimed  the  princess,  bursting 
into  tears,  as  she  fell  on  her  knees  and  raised  her  arms  to 
heaven  ;  "  if  we  are  mistaken,  —  if  we  must  render  an 
account  to  thee  for  all  these  hearts  we  are  about  to 
break  —  " 

Her  voice,  drowned  in  tears,  died  away  in  a  moan. 


374  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XLI. 


THE   SEARCH. 


A  knock  was  heard  on  the  trap-door  leading  to  the  garret. 

"What  is  the  matter  ?"  cried  Bonneville's  voice. 

He  had  heard  a  few  words  of  what  had  passed,  and 
became  uneasy. 

"Nothing,  nothing,"  said  the  young  woman,  pressing 
the  hand  of  her  hostess  with  an  affectionate  strength  that 
showed  the  impression  the  poor  widow's  words  had  made 
upon  her.  Then,  giving  another  tone  to  her  voice,  she 
cried  out  cheerfully,  going  a  few  steps  up  the  ladder  to 
speak  more  easily,  " And  you  —  ?" 

The  trap-door  opened,  and  the  smiling  face  of  Bonneville 
looked  down. 

"  How  are  you  getting  on  ?  "  said  the  peasant- woman, 
ending  her  sentence. 

"All  ready  to  do  it  over  again,  if  your  service  requires 
it,"  he  replied. 

She  thanked  him  by  a  smile. 

"  Who  was  it  came  here  just  now  ?  "  asked  Bonneville. 

"  A  peasant  named  Courtin,  who  did  n't  seem  to  be  one 
of  our  friends." 

"  Ah,  ha  !  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie  ?  " 

"That's  the  man." 

"I  know  him,"  continued  Bonneville;  "Michel  told  me 
about  him.  He  is  a  dangerous  man.  You  ought  to  have 
had  him  followed." 

"By  whom  ?     There  is  no  one  here." 

"By  Joseph  Picaut." 


THE    SEARCH.  375 

"You  know  our  brave  Jean  Oullier's  repugnance  to 
him." 

''And  yet  he  's  a  White,"  cried  the  widow,  —  "a  White, 
who  stood  by  and  let  them  kill  his  brother." 

The  duchess  and  Bonneville  both  gave  a  start  of  horror. 

"Then  it  is  far  better  we  should  not  mix  him  in  our 
affairs,"  said  Bonneville.  " He  would  bring  a  curse  with 
him.  But  have  you  no  one  we  could  put  as  sentry  near 
the  house,  Madame  Picaut  ?  " 

"Jean  Oullier  has  provided  some  one,  and  I  have  sent 
my  nephew  on  to  the  moor  of  Saint-Pierre;  he  can  see 
over  the  whole  country  from  there." 

"But  he  is  only  a  child,"  said  the  pretended  peasant- 
woman. 

"Safer  than  certain  men,"  said  the  widow. 

"After  all,"  remarked  Bonneville,  "we  haven't  long  to 
wait;  it  will  be  dark  in  three  hours,  and  then  our  friends 
will  be  here  with  horses." 

"  Three  hours  !  "  said  the  young  woman,  whose  mind 
had  been  painfully  pre-occupied  ever  since  her  talk  with 
the  widow.  "Many  things  may  happen  in  three  hours, 
my  poor  Bonneville." 

"Some  one  is  running  in,"  cried  Marianne  Picaut,  rush- 
ing from  the  window  to  the  door,  which  she  opened  quickly. 
"  Is  it  you,  nephew  ?  " 

"Yes,  aunt;  yes  !  "  cried  the  boy,  out  of  breath. 

"What  is  it?" 

"  Oh,  aunt  !  aunt  !  the  soldiers  !  They  are  coming  up  ; 
they  surprised  and  killed  the  man  who  was  on  the  watch." 

"  The  soldiers  ?  "  cried  Joseph  Picaut,  who  from  his 
own  door  heard  the  cry  of  his  boy. 

"  What  can  we  do  ?  "  asked  Bonneville. 

"Wait  for  them,"  said  the  young  peasant-woman. 

"  Why  not  attempt  to  escape  ?  " 

"If  Courtin,  the  man  who  was  here  just  now,  sends 
them  or  brings  them,  they  have  surrounded  the  house." 

"Who  talks  of  escaping?"  asked  the  Widow  Picaut. 


376  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

''Did  I  not  say  that  this  house  was  safe?  Have  I  not 
sworn  that  so  long  as  you  are  within  it  no  harm  should 
happen  to  you  ?  " 

Here  the  scene  was  complicated  by  the  entrance  of 
another  person.  Thinking,  probably,  that  the  soldiers 
were  coming  after  him,  Joseph  Picaut  appeared  on  the 
threshold  of  the  widow's  door.  The  house  of  his  sister- 
in-law,  who  was  known  to  be  a  Blue,  may  have  seemed  to 
him  a  safe  asylum.  Perceiving  the  widow's  guests,  he 
started  back  in  surprise. 

"Ha  !  so  you  have  White  gentlefolk  here,  have  you? 
I  see  now  why  the  soldiers  are  coming;  you  have  sold 
your  guests." 

"Wretch!"  cried  Marianne,  seizing  her  husband's  sabre, 
which  hung  over  the  fireplace,  and  springing  at  Joseph, 
who  raised  his  gun  and  aimed  at  her. 

Bonneville  sprang  down  the  ladder;  but  the  young  peas- 
ant-woman had  already  flung  herself  between  the  brother 
and  sister,  covering  the  widow  with  her  body. 

"  Lower  your  gun  !  "  she  cried  to  the  Vendéan,  in  a  tone 
that  seemed  not  to  come  from  that  frail  and  delicate  body, 
so  male  and  energetic  was  it.  "  Lower  your  gun  !  in  the 
king's  name  I  command  it  !  " 

"  Who  are  you  who  speak  thus  to  me  ?  "  asked  Joseph 
Picaut,  always  ready  to  rebel  against  authority. 

"I  am  she  who  is  expected  here, —  who  commands  here." 

At  these  words,  said  with  supreme  majesty,  Joseph 
Picaut,  speechless,  and  as  if  bewildered,  dropped  his 
weapon  to  the  ground. 

"Now,"  continued  the  young  woman,  "go  up  in  the  loft 
with  monsieur." 

"  But  you  ?  "  said  Bonneville. 

"I  stay  here." 

"But  —  " 

"  There  's  no  time  to  argue.     Go;  go  at  once  !  " 

The  two  men  mounted  the  ladder,  and  the  trap-door 
closed  behind  them. 


THE    SEARCH.  377 

"What  are  you  doing?"  the  young  woman  asked  with 
surprise,  as  the  widow  began  to  disarrange  the  bed  on 
which  the  body  of  her  husband  lay  and  to  drag  it  from 
the  wall. 

"  I  am  preparing  a  hiding-place  where  no  one  will  seek 
you." 

"But  I  don't  mean  to  hide  myself.  No  one  will  recog- 
nize me  in  these  clothes.     I  choose  to  await  them  as  I  am." 

"And  I  choose  that  you  shall  not  await  them,"  said  the 
Widow  Picaut,  in  so  firm  a  tone  that  she  silenced  her 
visitor.  "You  heard  what  that  man  said;  if  you  are  dis- 
covered while  in  my  house  it  will  be  thought  that  I  sold 
you,  and  I  do  not  choose  to  run  the  risk  of  your  being 
discovered." 

"  You,  my  enemy  ?  " 

"Yes,  your  enemy,  who  would  lie  down  on  this  bed  and 
die  if  she  saw  you  made  prisoner." 

There  was  no  reply  to  make.  The  widow  of  Pascal 
Picaut  raised  the  mattress  on  which  the  body  lay,  and  hid 
the  clothes  and  shirt  and  shoes,  which  had  so  awakened 
Courtin's  curiosity,  beneath  it.  Then  she  pointed  to  a 
place  between  the  mattress  and  the  straw  bed,  on  the  side 
toward  the  wall,  wide  enough  for  a  small  person  to  lie, 
and  the  young  woman  glided  into  it  without  resistance, 
making  for  herself  a  breathing-space  at  the  edge.  Then 
the  widow  pushed  the  bedstead  back  into  its  place. 

Mistress  Picaut  had  barely  time  to  look  carefully  into 
every  corner  of  the  room  to  make  sure  that  nothing  com- 
promising to  her  guests  was  left  about,  when  she  heard 
the  click  of  arms,  and  the  figure  of  an  officer  passed  before 
the  casement. 

"This  must  be  the  place,"  she  heard  him  say,  addressing 
a  companion  who  walked  behind  him. 

"  What  do  you  want  ?  "  asked  the  widow,  opening  the 
door. 

"You  have  strangers  here;  we  wish  to  see  them,"  replied 
the  officer. 


378  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

"  Ah,  ça  !  don't  you  recognize  me?  "  interrupted  Marianne 
Picaut,  avoiding  a  direct  reply. 

"Yes;  of  course,  I  recognize  you.  You  are  the  woman 
who  served  us  as  guide  last  night." 

"Well,  if  I  guided  you  in  search  of  the  enemies  of  the 
government,  it  is  n't  likely  I  should  be  hiding  them  here 
now,  is  it  ?  " 

"That's  logical  enough,  isn't  it,  captain?"  said  the 
second  officer. 

"Bah  !  one  can't  trust  any  of  these  people;  they  are 
brigands  from  the  breast,"  replied  the  lieutenant.  "  Did  n't 
you  notice  that  boy,  a  little  scamp  not  ten  years  old,  who 
in  spite  of  our  shouts  and  threats  ran  across  the  moor  at 
full  speed?  He  was  their  sentinel;  they  have  been  warned. 
Happily,  they  have  not  had  time  to  escape  ;  they  must  be 
hidden  somewhere  here." 

"Possibly." 

"Certainly."  Then,  turning  to  the  widow,  he  said, 
"  We  shall  not  do  you  any  harm,  but  we  must  search  the 
house." 

"As  you  please,"  she  said,  with  perfect  composure. 

Seating  herself  quietly  in  the  corner  of  the  fireplace,  she 
took  her  shuttle  and  distaff,  which  she  had  left  upon  a 
chair,  and  began  to  spin. 

The  lieutenant  made  a  sign  with  his  hand  to  five  or  six 
soldiers,  who  now  entered  the  room.  Looking  carefully 
about  him,  he  went  up  to  the  bed. 

The  widow  grew  paler  than  the  flax  on  her  shuttle.  Her 
eyes  flamed;  the  distaff  slipped  from  her  fingers.  The 
officer  looked  under  the  bed,  then  along  the  sides  of  it, 
and,  finally,  put  out  his  hand  to  raise  the  sheet  that 
covered  the  body.  Pascal's  widow  could  contain  herself 
no  longer.  She  rose,  bounded  to  the  corner  of  the  room 
where  her  husband's  gun  was  leaning,  resolutely  cocked  it, 
and  threatening  the  officer,  exclaimed  :  — 

"If  you  lay  a  hand  on  that  body,  so  sure  as  I  am  an 
honest  woman,  I  will  shoot  you  like  a  dog." 


THE   SEARCH.  379 

The  second  lieutenant  pulled  away  his  comrade  by  the 
arm.  The  Widow  Picaut,  without  laying  down  the 
weapon,  approached  the  bed,  and  for  the  second  time  she 
raised  the  sheet  that  covered  the  dead. 

"  See  there  !  "  she  said.  "  That  man,  who  was  my  hus- 
band, was  killed  yesterday  in  your  service." 

"Ah  !  true;  our  first  guide,  — the  one  that  was  killed 
at  the  ford  of  the  river,"  said  the  lieutenant. 

"Poor  woman  !  "  said  his  companion;  "let  us  leave  her 
in  peace.     It  is  a  pity  to  torment  her  at  such  a  time." 

"And  yet,"  replied  the  first  officer,  "the  information  of 
the  man  we  met  was  precise  and  circumstantial." 

"We  did  wrong  not  to  oblige  him  to  come  back  with  us." 

"Have  you  any  other  room  than  this?"  said  the  chief 
officer  to  the  widow. 

"I  have  the  loft  above,  and  that  stable  over  the  way." 

"Search  the  loft  and  the  stable;  but  first,  open  all  the 
chests  and  closets,  and  look  carefully  in  the  oven." 

The  soldiers  spread  themselves  through  the  house  to 
execute  these  orders.  From  her  terrible  hiding-place  the 
young  woman  heard  every  word  of  the  conversation.  She 
also  heard  the  steps  of  the  soldiers  as  they  mounted  the 
ladder  to  the  loft,  and  she  trembled  with  greater  fear  at 
that  sound  than  when  the  officer  had  attempted  to  remove 
the  death-sheet  that  concealed  her,  for  she  thought,  with 
terror,  that  Bonneville's  hiding-place  was  far  less  safe 
than  her  own. 

When,  therefore,  she  heard  those  who  had  gone  to 
search  the  loft  coming  down,  without  any  sound  of  a  strug- 
gle or  cry  to  show  that  the  men  were  discovered,  her  heart 
was  lightened  of  a  heavy  load. 

The  first  lieutenant  was  waiting  in  the  lower  room,  and 
was  seated  on  the  bread-box.  The  second  officer  was 
directing  the  search  of  eight  or  ten  of  the  soldiers  in  the 
stable. 

"Well,"  asked  the  first  lieutenant,  "have  you  found 
anything  ?  " 


380  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  No,"  said  a  corporal. 

"  Did  you  shake  the  straw,  the  hay,  and  everything  ?  " 

"We  prodded  everywhere  with  our  bayonets.  If  there 
was  a  man  hidden  anywhere  it  is  impossible  he  should  have 
escaped  being  stabbed." 

"Very  good;  then  we  will  go  to  the  adjoining  house. 
These  persons  must  be  somewhere." 

The  men  left  the  room,  and  the  officer  followed  them. 

While  the  soldiers  continued  their  exploration  the  lieu- 
tenant stood  leaniug  against  the  outer  wall  of  the  house, 
looking  suspiciously  at  a  little  pent-house  he  resolved  to 
search  carefully.  Suddenly  a  bit  of  plaster,  no  bigger 
than  a  man's  finger,  fell  at  his  feet.  He  raised  his  head 
and  fancied  he  saw  a  hand  disappearing  under  the  roof. 

"  Here  !  "  he  cried  to  his  men,  in  a  voice  of  thunder. 

The  soldiers  surrounded  him. 

"  You  are  a  pretty  set  of  fellows  !  "  he  said  ;  "  you  do 
your  business  finely  !  " 

"  What 's  happened,  lieutenant  ?  "  asked  the  men. 

"  It  has  happened  that  the  men  are  up  there  in  the  very 
loft  you  pretend  to  have  searched.  Go  up  again,  quick  ! 
and  don't  leave  a  spear  of  straw  unturned." 

The  soldiers  re-entered  the  widow's  house.  They  went 
straight  to  the  trap-door  and  tried  to  raise  it;  but  this  time 
it  resisted.     It  was  fastened  from  above. 

"  Good  !  now  the  matter  is  plain  enough,"  said  the 
officer,  putting  his  own  foot  upon  the  ladder.  "  Come," 
he  cried,  raising  his  voice  to  be  heard  in  the  loft,  "  out  of 
your  lair,  or  we  '11  fetch  you." 

The  sound  of  a  sharp  discussion  was  heard  ;  it  was  evi- 
dent that  the  besieged  were  not  agreed  as  to  their  line  of 
action.     This  is  what  had  happened  with  them  :  — 

Bonneville  and  his  companion,  instead  of  hiding  under 
the  thick  hay,  where  the  soldiers  would,  of  course,  chiefly 
look  for  them,  had  slipped  under  a  light  pile  of  it,  not 
more  than  two  feet  deep,  which  lay  close  to  the  trap-door. 
What  they  hoped  for  had  happened;   the  soldiers  almost 


THE    SEARCH.  381 

walked  over  them,  prodding  the  places  where  the  hay  lay 
thicker,  but  neglecting  to  examine  that  part  of  the  loft 
where  it  seemed  tu  be  only  a  carpet.  The  searching  party 
retired,  as  we  have  seen,  without  rinding  those  they  were 
looking  for. 

From  their  hiding-place,  with  their  ears  to  the  floor, 
which  was  thin,  Bonneville  and  the  Vendean  could  hear 
distinctly  all  that  was  said  in  the  room  below.  Hearing 
the  officer  give  the  order  to  search  his  house,  Joseph  Picaut 
grew  uneasy,  for  in  it  was  a  quantity  of  gunpowder,  the 
possession  of  which  might  get  him  into  trouble.  In  spite 
of  his  companion's  remonstrances,  he  left  his  hiding-place 
to  watch  the  soldiers  through  the  chinks  left  between  the 
wall  and  the  roof  of  the  loft.  It  was  then  that  he  knocked 
off  the  fragment  of  plaster  which  fell  near  the  officer  and 
re-awakened  his  attention;  and  it  was  Joseph's  hand  the 
lieutenant  had  noticed,  which  he  had  rested  against  a 
rafter,  while  leaning  forward  to  look  into  the  yard. 

When  Bonneville  heard  the  officer's  shout  and  knew  that 
he  and  his  companion  were  discovered,  he  sprang  to  the 
trap-door  and  fastened  it,  bitterly  reproaching  the  Vendean 
for  the  folly  of  his  conduct.  But  reproaches  were  useless 
now  that  they  were  discovered  ;  it  was  necessary  to  decide 
on  a  course. 

"  You  saw  them,  at  any  rate,"  said  Bonneville. 

"Yes,"  replied  Joseph  Picaut. 

"  How  many  are  there  ?  " 

"  About  thirty,  I  should  say." 

"  Then  resistance  would  be  folly.  Besides,  they  have 
not  discovered  Madame,  and  our  arrest  would  take  them 
away  from  here,  and  make  her  safety  with  your  brave 
sister-in-law  more  secure." 

"  Then  your  advice  is  ?  "  questioned  Picaut. 

"To  surrender." 

"  Surrender  !  "  cried  the  Vendéan.     "  Never  !  " 

"  Why  not  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  know  what  you  are  thinking  of  !     You  are  a  gen- 


382  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

tlernan;  you  are  rich.  They  '11  put  you  in  a  fine  prison, 
where  you  '11  have  all  your  comforts.  But  me  !  —  they  '11 
send  me  to  the  galleys,  where  I  've  already  spent  fourteen 
years.  No,  no;  I  'd  rather  lie  in  a  bed  of  earth  than  a 
convict's  bed, — a  grave  rather  than  a  cell." 

"If  a  struggle  compromised  ourselves  only,"  said  Bonne- 
ville, "  I  swear  I  would  share  your  fate,  and,  like  you, 
they  should  not  take  me  living;  but  it  is  the  mother  of  our 
king  that  we  must  save,  and  this  is  no  moment  to  consult 
our  own  likings." 

"On  the  contrary,  let  us  kill  all  we  can;  the  fewer 
enemies  of  Henri  V.  we  leave  alive,  the  better.  Never  will  I 
surrender,  I  tell  you  that  !  "  cried  the  Vendéan,  putting  his 
foot  on  the  trap-door,  which  Bonneville  was  about  to  raise. 

"Oh,"  said  the  count,  frowning,  "you  will  obey  me, 
and  without  replying,   I  presume  !  " 

Picaut  burst  out  laughing. 

But  in  the  midst  of  his  threatening  mirth,  a  blow  from 
Bonneville's  fist  sent  him  sprawling  to  the  other  end  of 
the  loft.  As  he  fell  he  dropped  his  gun;  but  in  falling 
he  came  against  the  loft  window,  which  was  closed  by  a 
wooden  shutter.  A  sudden  idea  struck  him,  —  to  let  the 
young  man  surrender,  and  profit  by  the  diversion  to  escape 
himself. 

While,  therefore,  Bonneville  opened  the  trap-door,  he 
himself  undid  the  shutter,  picked  up  his  gun,  and  as  the 
count  called  down  from  the  top  of  the  ladder,  "  Don't  fire; 
we  surrender  !  "  the  Vendéan  leaned  forward,  discharged 
his  gun  into  the  group  of  soldiers,  turned  again,  and 
sprang  with  a  prodigious  bound  from  the  loft  to  a  heap  of 
manure  in  the  garden;  and  after  drawing  the  fire  of  one  or 
two  soldiers  stationed  as  sentinels,  he  reached  the  forest 
and  disappeared. 

The  shot  from  the  loft  brought  down  one  man,  danger- 
ously wounded.  But  ten  muskets  were  instantly  pointed 
on  Bonneville;  and  before  the  mistress  of  the  house  could 
fling  herself  forward  and  make  a  rampart  with  her  body  for 


THE   SEARCH.  383 

him,  as  she  tried  to  do,  the  unfortunate  young  man,  pierced 
by  seven  or  eight  balls,  rolled  down  the  ladder  to  the 
widow's  feet,  crying  out  with  his  last  breath:  — 

"  Vive  Henri  V  !  " 

To  this  last  cry  from  Bonneville  came  an  echoing  cry  of 
grief  and  of  despair.  The  tumult  that  followed  the  explo- 
sion and  Bonneville's  fall  hindered  the  soldiers  from 
noticing  this  second  cry,  which  came  from  Pascal  Picaut's 
bed,  and  seemed  to  issue  from  the  breast  of  the  corpse,  as 
it  lay  there,  majestically  calm  and  impassible  amid  the 
horrors  of  this  terrible  scene. 

The  lieutenant  saw,  through  the  smoke,  that  the  widow 
was  on  her  knees,  with  Bonneville's  head,  which  she  had 
raised,  pressed  to  her  breast. 

"  Is  he  dead  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Yes,"  said  Marianne,  in  a  voice  choking  with  emotion. 

"But  you  yourself,  — you  are  wounded." 

Great  drops  of  blood  were  falling  thick,  and  fast  from 
the  widow's  forehead  upon  Bonneville's  breast. 

"I?"  she  said. 

"Yes;  your  blood  is  flowing." 

"  What  matters  my  blood,  if  not  a  drop  remains  in  him 
for  whom  I  could  not  die  as  I  had  sworn  ?  "  she  cried. 

At  this  moment  a  soldier  looked  down  through  the  trap- 
door. 

"Lieutenant,"  he  said,  "the  other  has  escaped  through 
the  loft;  we  fired  at  him  and  missed  him." 

"  The  other  !  "  cried  the  lieutenant  ;  "  it  is  the  other  we 
want  !  "  —  supposing,  very  naturally,  that  the  one  who  had 
escaped  was  Petit-Pierre.  "  But  unless  he  finds  another 
guide  we  are  sure  of  him.  After  him,  instantly  !  "  Then 
reflecting,  "But  first,  my  good  woman,  get  up,"  he  con- 
tinued.    "You  men,   search  that  body." 

The  order  was  executed;  but  nothing  was  found  in  Bon- 
neville's pocket,  for  the  good  reason  that  he  was  wearing 
Pascal  Picaut's  clothes,  which  the  widow  had  given  him 
while  she  dried  his  own. 


384  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Xow,"  said  Marianne  Picaut,  when  the  order  was 
obeyed,  "  he  is  really  mine,  is  he  not  ?  "  and  she  stretched 
her  arm  over  the  body  of  the  young  man. 

"  Yes  ;  do  what  you  please  with  him.  But  thank  God 
that  you  were  useful  to  us  last  night,  or  I  should  have  sent 
you  to  Nantes  to  be  taught  there  what  it  costs  to  give  aid 
and  comfort  to  rebels." 

With  these  words,  the  lieutenant  assembled  his  men  and 
marched  quickly  away  in  the  direction  the  fugitive  had 
taken.  As  soon  as  they  were  well  out  of  sight  the  widow 
ran  to  the  bed,  and  lifting  the  side  of  the  mattress,  she 
drew  out  the  body  of  the  princess,  who  had  swooned. 

Ten  minutes  later  Bonneville's  body  was  laid  beside 
that  of  Pascal  Picaut;  and  the  two  women,  —the  presump- 
tive regent  and  the  humble  peasant,  —  kneeling  beside  the 
bed,  prayed  together  for  these,  the  first  two  victims  of  the 
last  insurrection  of  La  Vendée. 


JEAN   OULLIEE'S   IDEAS   OF   BARON   MICHEL.  385 


XLII. 

IN    WHICH    JEAN    OULLIER,    SPEAKS    HIS    MIND    ABOUT    YOUNG 
BARON   MICHEL. 

While  the  melancholy  events  we  have  just  related  were 
taking  place  in  the  house  where  Jean  Oullier  had  left  poor 
Bonneville  and  his  companion,  all  was  excitement,  move- 
ment, joy,  and  tumult  in  the  household  of  the  Marquis  de 
Souday. 

The  old  gentleman  could  hardly  contain  himself  for  joy. 
He  had  reached  the  moment  he  had  coveted  so  long  !  He 
now  chose  for  his  war-apparel  the  least  shabby  hunting- 
clothes  he  could  find  in  his  wardrobe.  Girt,  in  his  quality 
as  corps-commander,  with  a  white  scarf  (which  his  daugh- 
ters had  long  since  embroidered  for  him  in  anticipation  of 
this  call  to  arms),  with  the  bloody  heart  upon  his  breast, 
and  a  rosary  in  his  button-hole,  —  in  short,  the  full-dress 
insignia  of  a  royalist  chief  on  grand  occasions,  —  he  tried 
the  temper  of  his  sabre  on  all  the  articles  of  furniture  that 
came  in  his  way. 

Also,  from  time  to  time,  he  exercised  his  voice  to  a 
tone  of  command,  by  drilling  Michel,  and  even  the  notary, 
whom  he  insisted  on  enrolling  into  the  number  of  his 
recruits,  but  who,  notwithstanding  the  violence  of  his 
legitimist  opinions,  thought  it  judicious  not  to  manifest, 
them  in  a  manner  that  was  ultra-loyal. 

Bertha,  like  her  father,  had  put  on  a  costume  which  she 
intended  to  wear  on  such  expeditions.  This  was  com- 
posed of  a  little  overcoat  of  green  velvet,  open  in  front, 
and  showing  a  shirt-frill  of  dazzling  whiteness;  the  coat 
was  trimmed  with  frogs  and  loops  of  black  gimp,  and  it 
vol.  i.  —  25 


386  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

fitted  the  figure  closely.  The  dress  was  completed  by 
enormously  wide  trousers  of  gray  cloth,  which  came  down 
to  a  pair  of  high  huzzar  boots  reaching  to  the  knee.  The 
young  girl  wore  no  scarf  about  her  waist,  the  scarf  being 
considered  among  Vendéans  as  a  sign  of  command;  but  she 
was  careful  to  wear  the  white  emblem  on  her  arm,  held 
there  by  a  red  ribbon. 

This  costume  brought  out  the  grace  and  suppleness  of 
Bertha's  figure;  and  her  gray  felt  hat,  with  its  white 
feathers,  lent  itself  marvellously  well  to  the  manly  char- 
acter of  her  face.  Seen  thus,  she  was  enchanting. 
Although,  by  reason  of  her  masculine  ways,  Bertha  was 
certainly  not  coquettish,  she  could  not  prevent  herself,  in 
her  present  condition  of  mind  or  rather  of  heart,  from 
noticing  with  satisfaction  the  advantages  her  physical 
gifts  derived  from  this  equipment.  Perceiving,  too,  that 
it  produced  a  great  impression  upon  Michel,  she  became  as 
exuberantly  joyful  as  the  marquis  himself. 

The  truth  is  that  Michel,  whose  mind  had  by  this  time 
reached  a  certain  enthusiasm  for  his  new  cause,  did  not 
see  without  an  admiration  he  gave  himself  no  trouble  to 
conceal  the  proud  carriage  and  chivalric  bearing  of  Bertha 
de  Soiv.lay  in  her  present  dress.  But  this  admiration,  let 
us  hasten  to  remark,  came  chiefly  from  the  thought  of 
what  his  beloved  Mary's  grace  would  be  in  such  a  cos- 
tume, —  for  he  did  not  doubt  the  sisters  would  make  the 
campaign  together  in  the  same  uniform. 

His  eyes  had,  therefore,  gently  questioned  Mary,  as  if 
to  ask  her  why  she  did  not  adorn  herself  like  Bertha.  But 
Mary  had  shown  such  coldness,  such  reserve,  since  the 
double  scene  in  the  turret  chamber,  she  avoided  so 
obviously  saying  a  word  to  him,  that  the  natural  timidity 
of  the  young  man  increased,  and  he  dared  not  risk  more 
than  the  appealing  look  we  have  referred  to. 

It  was  Bertha,  therefore,  and  not  Michel,  who  urged 
Mary  to  make  haste  and  put  on  her  riding-dress.  Mary 
did  not  answer;  her  sad  looks  made  a  painful  contrast  to 


JEAN    OULLIEli's    IDEAS   OF    BARON    MICHEL.  387 

the  general  gayety.  She  nevertheless  obeyed  Bertha's 
behest  and  went  up  to  her  chamber.  The  costume  she 
intended  to  wear  lay  all  ready  on  a  chair;  but  instead  of 
putting  out  her  hand  to  take  it,  she  merely  looked  at  the 
garments  with  a  pallid  smile  and  seated  herself  on  her 
little  bed,  while  the  big  tears  rolled  from  her  eyes  and 
down  her  cheeks. 

Mary,  who  was  religious  and  artless,  had  been  thor- 
oughly sincere  and  true  in  the  impulse  which  led  her  to 
her  present  rôle  of  sacrifice  and  self-abnegation  through 
devotion  and  tenderness  to  her  sister;  but  it  is  none  the 
less  true  that  she  had  counted  too  much  on  her  strength  to 
sustain  it.  From  the  beginning  of  the  struggle  against 
herself  which  she  saw  before  her,  she  felt,  not  that  her 
resolution  would  fail,  —  her  resolution  would  be  ever  the 
same,  —  but  that  her  confidence  in  the  result  of  her  efforts 
was  diminishing. 

All  the  morning  she  kept  saying  to  herself,  "  You  ought 
not,  you  must  not  love  him  ;  "  but  the  echo  still  came  back, 
"  I  love  him,  love  him  !  "  At  every  step  she  made  under 
the  empire  of  these  feelings,  Mary  felt  herself  more  and 
more  estranged  from  all  that  had  hitherto  made  her  joy 
and  life.  The  stir,  the  movement,  the  virile  excitements, 
which  had  hitherto  amused  her  girlhood,  now  seemed  to 
her  intolerable;  political  interests  themselves  were  effaced 
in  presence  of  this  deeper  personal  preoccupation  which 
superseded  all  others.  All  that  could  distract  her  heart 
from  the  thoughts  she  longed  to  drive  from  her  mind 
escaped  her  like  a  covey  of  birds  when  she  came  near  it. 

She  saw,  distinctly,  at  every  turn,  how  in  this  fatal 
struggle  she  would  be  worsted,  isolated,  abandoned,  with 
no  support  except  her  own  will,  with  no  consolation  other 
than  that  which  ought  to  come  from  her  devotion  itself; 
and  she  wept  bitter  tears  of  grief  as  well  as  fear,  of  regret 
as  much  as  of  apprehension.  By  her  present  suffering  she 
measured  the  anguish  yet  to  come. 

For  about  half  an  hour  she  sat  there,  sad,  thoughtful, 


388  THE    LAST   VENDEE. 

and  self-absorbed,  tossing,  with  no  power  of  escape,  in  the 
maelstrom  of  her  grief,  and  then  she  heard  on  the  outside 
of  her  door,  which  was  partly  open,  the  voice  of  Jean 
Oullier,  saying,  in  the  peculiar  tone  he  kept  for  the  two 
young  girls,  to  whom  he  had  made  himself,  as  we  have 
seen,  a  second  father  :  — 

"  What  is  the  matter,  my  dear  Mademoiselle  Mary  ?  " 

Mary  shuddered,  as  though  she  were  waking  from  a 
dream;  and  she  answered  the  honest  peasant  with  a  smile, 
but  also  with  embarrassment:  — 

"  Matter,  —  with  me  ?  Why,  nothing,  my  dear  Jean,  I 
assure  you." 

But  Jean  Oullier  meanwhile  had  considered  her  atten- 
tively. Coming  nearer  by  several  steps,  and  shaking  his 
head  as  he  looked  at  her  fixedly,  he  said,  in  a  tone  of 
gentle  and  respectful  scolding:  — 

"Why  do  you  say  that,  little  Mary  ?  Do  you  doubt  my 
friendship  ?  " 

"I?_ I?»  cried  Mary. 

"Yes;  you  must  doubt  it,  since  you  try  to  deceive  me." 

Mary  held  out  her  hand.  Jean  Oullier  took  that  slender 
and  delicate  little  hand  between  his  two  great  ones,  and 
looked  at  the  young  girl  sadly. 

"Ah  !  my  sweet  little  Mary,"  he  said,  as  if  she  were 
still  ten  years  old,  "  there  is  no  rain  without  clouds,  there 
are  no  tears  without  grief.  Do  you  remember  when  you 
were  a  little  child  how  you  cried  because  Bertha  threw  your 
shells  into  the  well  ?  Well,  that  night,  you  know,  Jean 
Oullier  tramped  forty  miles,  and  your  pretty  sea-baubles 
were  replaced  the  next  day,  and  your  pretty  blue  eyes  were 
all  dry  and  shining." 

"Yes,  my  kind  Jean  Oullier;  yes,  indeed,  I  remem- 
ber it,"  said  Mary,  who  just  now  felt  a  special  need  of 
expression. 

"Well,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  "since  then  I've  grown 
old,  but  my  tenderness  for  you  has  only  deepened.  Tell 
me  your  trouble,   Mary.     If  there   is  a  remedy,   I  shall 


JEAN   OULLIER'S   IDEAS   OF   BARON    MICHEL.  389 

find  it  j  if  there  is  none,  my  withered  old  eyes  will  weep 
with  yours." 

Mary  knew  how  difficult  it  would  be  to  mislead  the 
clear-sighted  solicitude  of  her  old  servant.  She  hesitated, 
blushed,  and  then,  without  deciding  to  tell  the  cause  of 
her  tears,  she  began  to  explain  them. 

"I  am  crying,  my  poor  Jean,"  she  replied,  "because  I 
fear  this  war  will  cost  me,  perhaps,  the  lives  of  all  I  love.'' 

Mary,  alas  !  had  learned  to  lie  since  the  previous  even- 
ing. But  Jean  Oublier  was  not  to  be  taken  in  with  any 
such  answer,  and  shaking  his  head  gently,  he  said  :  — 

"No,  little  Mary;  that's  not  the  cause  of  your  tears. 
When  old  fellows  like  the  marquis  and  I  are  caught  by 
the  glamor  and  see  nothing  in  the  coming  struggle  but 
victory,  a  young  heart  like  yours  does  n't  go  out  of  its  way 
to  predict  reverses." 

Mary  would  not  admit  herself  beaten.  "And  yet,  Jean," 
she  said,  taking  one  of  the  coaxing  attitudes  which  she 
knew  by  long  practice  were  all-powerful  over  the  will  of 
the  worthy  man,  "I  assure  you  it  is  so." 

"No,  no;  it  is  not  so,  I  tell  you,"  persisted  Jean 
Oullier,  still  grave,  and  growing  more  and  more  anxious. 

"  What  is  it,  then  ?  "  demanded  Mary. 

"Ah  !"  said  the  old  keeper;  "do  you  want  me  to  tell 
you  the  cause  of  your  tears  ?  Do  you  really  want  me  to 
tell  you  that  ?  " 

"Yes,  if  you  can." 

"Well,  your  tears,  —it  is  hard  to  say  it,  but  I  think  it, 
I  do,  —  they  are  caused  by  that  miserable  little  Monsieur 
Michel;  there  !" 

Mary  turned  as  white  as  the  curtains  of  her  bed;  all  her 
blood  flowed  back  to  her  heart. 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Jean  ?  "  she  stammered. 

"I  mean  to  say  that  you  have  seen  as  well  as  I  what  is 
going  on,  and  that  you  don't  like  it  any  more  than  I  do. 
Only,  I  'm  a  man,  and  I  get  in  a  rage;  you  are  a  girl,  and 
you  cry." 


390  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Mary  could  not  repress  a  sob  as  she  felt  Jean  Oullier's 
finger  in  her  wound. 

"It  is  not  astonishing,"  continued  the  keeper,  mutter- 
ing to  himself;  "ivolfas  they  call  you,  — those  curs,  — you 
are  still  a  woman,  and  a  woman  kneaded  of  the  best  flour 
that  ever  fell  from  the  sifter  of  the  good  God.  " 

"Really,  Jean,  I  don't  understand  you." 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  you  do  understand  me  very  well,  little  Mary. 
Yes;  you  have  seen  what  is  happening  the  same  as  I  have. 
Who  would  n't  see  it  ?  —  good  God  !  One  must  be  blind 
not  to,  for  she  takes  no  pains  to  hide  it.  " 

"But  whom  are  you  speaking  of,  Jean  ?  Tell  me;  don't 
you  see  that  you  are  killing  me  with  anxiety  ?  " 

"Whom  should  I  be  speaking  of  but  Mademoiselle 
Bertha  ?  " 

"  My  sister  ?  " 

"  Yes,  your  sister,  who  parades  herself  about  with  that 
greenhorn;  who  means  to  drag  him  in  her  train  to  our 
camp;  and,  meantime,  having  tied  him  to  her  apron- 
strings  for  fear  he  should  get  away,  is  exhibiting  him  to 
everybody  all  round  as  a  conquest,  without  considering 
what  the  people  in  the  house  and  the  friends  of  the  mar- 
quis will  say,  —  not  to  speak  of  that  mischievous  notary, 
who  is  watching  it  all  with  his  little  eyes,  and  mending  his 
pen  already  to  draw  the  contract." 

"  But  supposing  all  that  is  so,"  said  Mary,  whose  pale- 
ness was  now  succeeded  by  a  high  color,  aud  whose  heart 
was  beating  as  though  it  would  break,  —  "  supposing  all 
that  is  so,  where  is  the  harm?" 

"  Harm  !  Do  you  ask  where  's  the  harm  ?  Why,  just 
now  my  blood  was  boiling  to  see  a  Demoiselle  de  Sou- 
day  —     Oh,  there  !  there  !  don't  let 's  talk  of  it  !  " 

"Yes,  yes;  on  the  contrary,  I  wish  to  talk  of  it,"  insisted 
Mary.  "What  was  Bertha  doing  just  now,  my  good  Jean 
Oullier  ?  " 

And  the  girl  looked  persuasively  at  the  keeper. 

"  Well,  Mademoiselle  Bertha  de  Souday  tied  the  white 


JEAN   OULLIER'S   IDEAS   OF   BARON    MICHEL.  391 

scarf  to  Monsieur  Michel's  arm, — the  colors  borne  by 
Charette  on  the  arm  of  the  son  of  him  who —  Ah  !  stop, 
stop,  little  Mary;  you'll  make  me  say  things  I  mustn't 
say  !  Little  she  cares  —  Mademoiselle  Bertha  —  that  your 
father  is  out  of  temper  with  me  to-day,  all  about  that 
young  fellow,  too." 

"  My  father  !     Have  you  been  speaking  to  him  —  " 

Mary  stopped. 

"Of  course  I  have,"  replied  Jean,  taking  the  question  in 
its  literal  sense,  —  "of  course  I  have  spoken  to  him." 

"When?" 

"This  morning:  first,  when  I  brought  him  Petit-Pierre's 
letter;  and  then  when  I  gave  him  the  list  of  the  men  who 
are  in  his  division,  and  who  will  march  with  us.  I  know 
they  are  not  as  numerous  as  they  should  be  ;  but  he  who 
does  what  he  can  does  what  he  ought.  What  do  you  think 
he  answered  me  when  I  asked  him  if  that  young  Monsieur 
Michel  was  really  going  to  be  one  of  us  ?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Mary. 

"'God's  death  !'  he  cried;  'you  recruit  so  badly  that  I 
am  obliged  to  get  some  one  to  help  your  work.  Yes, 
Monsieur  Michel  is  one  of  us;  and  if  you  don't  like  it  go 
and  find  fault  with  Mademoiselle  Bertha.  '  " 

"  He  said  that  to  you,  my  poor  Jean  ?  " 

"Yes;  and  I  mean  to  have  a  talk  with  Mademoiselle 
Bertha,  that  I  do." 

"Jean,  my  friend,  take  care  !  " 

"Take  care  of  what?" 

"Take  care  not  to  grieve  her,  not  to  make  her  angry. 
She  loves  him,  Jean,"  said  Mary,  in  a  voice  that  was 
scarcely  audible. 

"Ah!  then  you  do  admit  she  loves  him?"  cried  Jean 

Oullier. 

"I  am  forced  to  do  so,"  said  Mary. 

"Love  a  little  puppet  that  a  breath  can  tip  over  !  " 
sneered  Jean  Chillier,  —  "she,  Mademoiselle  Bertha, 
change  her  name,  one  of  the  oldest  in  the  land,  one  of  the 


o92  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

names  that  make  our  glory,  the  peasants'  glory,  as  they 
do  that  of  the  men  who  bear  them,  —  change  a  name  like 
that  for  the  name  of  a  coward  and  a  traitor  !  " 

Mary's  heart  was  wrung  in  her  bosom. 

"Jean,  my  friend,"  she  said;  "you  go  too  far,  Jean. 
Don't  say  such  things,   I  entreat  you." 

"It  shall  not  be,"  continued  Jean  Oullier,  paying  no 
heed  to  Mary's  interruption,  and  walking  up  and  down 
the  room;  "no,  it  shall  not  be.  If  all  the  rest  are  in- 
different to  the  family  honor  I  will  watch  over  it,  and 
rather  than  see  it  tarnished  I,  —  well,  I  will  —  " 

And  Jean  Oullier  made  a  threatening  gesture,  the  mean- 
ing of  which  was  unmistakable. 

"No,  Jean;  no,  you  would  never  do  that,"  cried  Mary,  in 
a  heart-rending  voice.     "  I  implore  you  with  clasped  hands." 

And  she  almost  fell  forward  on  her  knees.  The  Ven- 
déan  stepped  back,  horrified. 

"You,  — you,  too,  little  Mary?"  he  cried;  "you  love  —  " 

But  she  did  not  give  him  time  to  end  his  sentence. 

"Think,  Jean,  only  think  of  the  grief  you  would  cause 
to  my  dear  Bertha." 

Jean  Oullier  was  looking  at  her  in  stupefaction,  only 
half-relieved  of  the  suspicion  he  had  just  conceived,  when 
Bertha's-  voice  was  heard  ordering  Michel  to  wait  for  her 
in  the  garden  and  on  no  account  to  go  away.  Almost  at 
the  same  moment  she  opened  the  door  of  her  sister's  room. 

"Well  !  "  she  exclaimed;  "is  this  how  you  get  ready  ?" 
Then,  looking  closer  at  Mary  and  noticing  the  trouble  in 
her  face,  she  continued,  "  What  is  the  matter  ?  You  have 
been  crying  !  And  you,  Jean  Oullier,  —  you  look  as  cross 
as  a  bear.     What 's  going  on  here  ?  " 

"I '11  tell  you  what's  going  on,  Mademoiselle  Bertha," 
replied  the  Vendéan. 

"No,  no  !"  exclaimed  Mary;  "I  entreat  you  not,  Jean. 
Hold  your  tongue  ;  oh,  do  be  silent  !  " 

"You  scare  me  with  such  preambles,"  cried  Bertha; 
"  and  Jean  is  looking  at  me  with  an  inquisitorial  air  as  if 


JEAN   OULLIER'S   IDEAS    OF   BARON   MICHEL.  393 

I  had  committed  some  great  crime.  Come,  speak  out, 
Jean;  I  am  fully  disposed  to  be  kind  and  indulgent  on 
this  happy  day,  when  all  my  most  ardent  dreams  are  real- 
ized, and  I  can  share  with  men  their  noblest  privilege  of 
war  !  " 

"Be  frank,  Demoiselle  Bertha,"  said  the  Vendean;  "is 
that  the  true  reason  why  you  are  so  joyful  ?  " 

"  Ha  !  now  I  see  what  the  matter  is,  "  said  Bertha,  boldly 
facing  the  question.  "Major-General  Oullier  wants  to 
scold  me  for  trenching  on  his  functions."  Turning  to  her 
sister,  she  added,  "  I  '11  bet,  Mary,  that  it  is  all  about  my 
poor  Michel." 

"Exactly,  mademoiselle,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  not  leaving 
Mary  time  to  answer. 

"  Well,  what  have  you  to  say  about  him,  Jean  ?  My 
father  is  delighted  to  get  another  adherent,  and  I  can't  see 
anything  in  that  to  make  you  frown." 

"Your  father  may  like  it,"  replied  the  old  keeper,  "but 
it  does  n't  suit  the  rest  of  us;  we  have  other  ideas." 

"  May  I  be  allowed  to  know  them  ?  " 

"We  think  each  side  should  stay  in  its  own  camp." 

"Well  ?" 

"Well  what?" 

"Go  on;  finish  what  you  mean  to  say." 

"I  mean  to  say  that  Monsieur  Michel's  place  is  not 
with  us." 

"Why  not?  Monsieur  Michel  is  royalist,  is  n't  he?  I 
think  he  has  given  proof  enough  during  the  last  two  days 
of  his  devotion  to  the  cause." 

"That  may  be;  but  all  the  same,  Demoiselle  Bertha,  we 
peasants  have  a  way  of  saying,  'Like  father,  like  son,' 
and  therefore  we  don't  believe  in  Monsieur  Michel's 
royalism." 

"He  will  force  you  to  believe  in  it." 

"  Possibly  ;  meanwhile  —  " 

The  Vendéan  frowned. 

"Meanwhile,  what?"  said  Bertha 


394  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Well,  I  tell  you,  it  will  be  painful  to  old  soldiers 
like  me  to  march  cheek  by  jowl  with  a  man  we  don't 
respect." 

"  What  possible  blame  can  you  put  on  him  ?  "  asked 
Bertha,  beginning  to  show  some  bitterness. 

"Much." 

"Much  means  nothing  unless  you  specify  it." 

"  Well,  his  father,  his  birth  —  " 

"His  father  !  his  birth  !"  interrupted  Bertha;  "always 
the  same  nonsense  !  Let  me  tell  you,  Jean  Oullier,"  she 
cried,  frowning  darkly,  "  that  it  is  precisely  on  account  of 
his  father  and  his  birth  that  he  interests  me,  that  young 
man." 

"Why  so?" 

"Because  my  heart  revolts  against  the  unjust  reproaches 
which  he  is  made  to  endure  from  all  our  party.  I  am  tired 
of  hearing  him  blamed  for  a  birth  he  did  not  choose,  for  a 
father  he  never  knew,  for  faults  he  never  committed,  and 
which,  perhaps,  his  father  never  committed.  All  that 
makes  me  indignant,  Jean  Oullier;  it  disgusts  me.  And 
I  think  it  a  noble  and  generous  action  to  encourage  that 
young  man  and  help  him  to  repair  the  past,  —  if  there  is 
anything  to  repair,  —  and  to  show  himself  so  brave  and  so 
devoted  that  calumny  will  not  dare  to  meddle  with  him 
in  future." 

"I  don't  care,"  retorted  Jean  Oullier;  "he  will  have  a 
good  deal  to  do  before  I,  for  one,  respect  the  name  he 
bears." 

"You  must  respect  it,  Jean  Oullier,"  said  Bertha,  in  a 
stern  voice,  "when  I  bear  it,  as  I  hope  to  do." 

"Oh,  yes  !  so  you  say,"  cried  Jean  Oullier;  "but  I 
don't  yet  believe  you  mean  it." 

"Ask  Mary,"  said  Bertha,  turning  to  her  sister,  who 
was  listening,  pale  and  palpitating,  to  the  discussion,  as 
though  her  life  depended  on  it;  "ask  my  sister,  to  whom 
I  have  opened  my  heart,  and  who  knows  my  hopes  and 
fears.     Yes,    Jean,    all   concealments,    all    constraints  are 


JEAN    OULLIER'S    IDEAS   OF    BABON    MICHEL.  395 

nateful  to  me;  and  I  am  glad,  especially  with  you,  to  have 
thrown  off  mine  and  to  speak  openly.  Well,  I  tell  you 
boldly,  Jean  Oullier,  — as  boldly  as  I  say  everything,  — I 
love  him  !  " 

"No,  no;  don't  say  that,  I  implore  you,  Demoiselle 
Bertha.  I  am  but  a  poor  peasant,  but  in  former  days  — 
it  is  true  you  were  but  a  little  thing  —  you  gave  me  the 
right  to  call  you  my  child;  and  I  have  loved  you,  and  I  do 
love  you  both  as  no  father  ever  loved  his  own  daughters  : 
well,  the  old  man  who  watched  over  you  in  childhood,  who 
held  you  on  his  knee,  and  rocked  you  to  sleep,  night  after 
night,  that  old  man,  whose  only  happiness  you  are  in  this 
low  world,  flings  himself  on  his  knees  to  say,  Don't  love 
that  man,  I  implore  you,  Bertha  !  " 

"  Why  not  ?  "  she  said,  impatiently. 

"  Because,  —  and  I  say  this  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart, 
on  my  soul  and  conscience,  — because  a  marriage  between 
you  and  him  is  an  evil  thing,  —  a  monstrous,  impossible 
thing  !  " 

:;Your  attachment  to  us  makes  you  exaggerate  every- 
thing, my  poor  Jean.  Monsieur  Michel  loves  me,  I  believe  ; 
I  love  him,  I  am  sure,  and  if  he  bravely  accomplishes  the 
task  of  distinguishing  his  name,  I  shall  be  most  happy  in 
becoming  his  wife." 

"Then,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  in  a  tone  of  deep  depression, 
"  I  must  look  in  my  old  age  for  other  masters  and  another 
home." 

"Why  ?" 

"Because  Jean  Oullier,  poor  and  of  no  account  as  he 
may  be,  will  never  make  his  home  with  the  son  of  a  rene- 
gade and  a  traitor." 

"Hush  !  Jean  Oullier,  hush  !  "  cried  Bertha.  "Hush, 
I  say,  or  I  may  break  your  heart." 

"Jean  !  my  good  Jean  !  "  murmured  Mary. 

"No,  no,"  said  the  old  keeper;  "you  ought  to  be  told 
the  noble  actions  which  have  glorified  the  name  you  are 
so  eager  to  take  in  exchange  for  your  own." 


396  THE   LAST   VENDEE. 

"Don't  say  another  word,  Jean  Chillier,"  interrupted 
Bertha,  in  a  tone  that  was  almost  threatening.  "Come, 
I  '11  tell  you  now,  I  have  often  questioned  my  heart  to 
know  which  I  loved  best,  my  father  or  you;  but  if  you 
say  another  word,  if  you  utter  another  insult  against  my 
Michel,  you  will  be  no  more  to  me  than  —  " 

"Than  a  servant,"  interrupted  Jean  Oullier.  "Yes; 
but  a  servant  who  is  honest,  and  who  all  his  life  has  done 
his  duty  without  betraying  it,  —  a  servant  who  has  the 
right  to  cry  shame  on  the  son  of  him  who  sold  Charette,  as 
Judas  sold  Christ,  for  a  sum  of  money." 

"What  do  I  care  for  what  happened  thirty-six  years 
ago,  — eighteen  years  before  I  was  born?  I  know  the  one 
who  lives,  and  not  the  one  who  is  dead,  —  the  son,  not  the 
father.  I  love  him;  do  you  hear  me,  Jean?  I  love  him 
as  you  yourself  have  taught  me  to  love  and  hate.  If  his 
father  did  as  you  say,  which  I  will  not  believe,  but  if  he 
did,  we  will  put  such  glory  on  the  name  of  Michel  —  on 
the  name  of  the  traitor  and  renegade  —  that  every  one 
shall  bow  before  it  ;  and  you  shall  help  in  doing  so,  —  yes, 
you,  Jean  Oullier,  —  for  I  repeat,  I  love  him,  and  nothing 
but  death  can  quench  the  spring  of  tenderness  that  flows 
to  him  from  my  heart." 

Mary  moaned  almost  inaudibly  ;  but  slight  as  the  sound 
was,  Jean  Oullier  heard  it.  He  turned  to  her.  Then,  as 
if  crushed  by  the  plaint  of  one  and  the  violence  of  the 
other,  he  dropped  on  a  chair  and  hid  his  face  in  his  hands. 
The  old  Vendéan  wept,  but  he  wished  to  hide  his  tears. 
Bertha  understood  what  was  passing  in  that  devoted  heart; 
she  went  to  him  and  knelt  beside  him. 

"  You  can  measure  the  strength  of  my  feelings  for  that 
young  man,  "  she  said,  "  by  the  fact  that  it  has  almost  led 
me  to  forget  my  deep  and  true  affection  for  you." 

Jean  Oullier  shook  his  head  sadly. 

"  I  comprehend  your  antipathies,  your  feelings  of  repug- 
nance," continued  Bertha,  "and  I  was  prepared  for  their 
expression;    but,    patience,   my   old   friend,   patience   and 


JEAN   OULLIER'S   IDEAS   OF   BARON   MICHEL.  397 

resignation  !  God  alone  can  take  out  of  my  heart  that 
which  he  bas  put  there;  and  he  will  not  do  that,  for  it 
would  kill  me.  Give  us  time  to  prove  to  you  that  your 
prejudices  are  unjust,  and  that  he  whom  I  have  chosen  is 
indeed  worthy  of  me." 

At  this  instant  they  heard  the  marquis  calling  for  Jean 
Oullier  in  a  voice  that  showed  some  new  and  serious  event 
had  happened.     Jean  Oullier  rose  and  went  to  the  door. 

"Stop  !"  said  Bertha;  "are  you  going  without  answer- 
ing me  ?  " 

"Monsieur  le  marquis  calls  me,  mademoiselle,"  replied 
the  Vendéan,  in  a  chilling  tone. 

"  Mademoiselle  !  "  cried  Bertha  ;  "  mademoiselle.  Ah  !  you 
will  not  listen  to  my  entreaties  ?  Well,  then,  remember 
this  :  I  forbid  you  —  mark,  I  forbid  you  —  to  offer  any 
insult  of  any  kind  to  Monsieur  Michel;  I  command  that 
his  life  be  sacred  to  you.  If  any  evil  happens  to  him 
through  you  I  will  avenge  it,  not  on  you  but  on  myself; 
and  you  know,  Jean  Oullier,  whether  or  not  I  do  as  I  say." 

Jean  Oullier  looked  at  the  girl;  then  taking  her  by  the 
arm,  he  said  :  — 

"  Maybe  it  would  be  better  so  than  to  let  you  marry  that 
man." 

The  marquis  now  called  louder  than  ever,  and  Jean 
Oullier  rushed  from  the  room,  leaving  Bertha  bewildered 
by  his  resistance,  and  Mary  bowed  down  beneath  the 
terror  which  the  violence  of  her  sister's  love  inspired 
in  her. 


398  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 


XLIII. 

BARON    MICHEL    BECOMES    BERTHA's    AIDE-DE-CAMP. 

Jean  Oublier  went  down,  as  we  have  said,  in  haste;  per- 
haps he  was  more  anxious  to  get  away  from  the  young  girl 
than  to  obey  the  call  of  the  marquis.  He  found  the  latter 
in  the  courtyard,  and  beside  him  stood  a  peasant,  covered 
with  mud  and  sweat. 

The  man  had  just  brought  news  that  Pascal  Picaut's 
house  was  surrounded  by  soldiers;  he  had  seen  them  go 
in,  and  that  was  all  he  knew.  He  had  been  stationed 
among  the  gorse  on  the  road  to  Sablonnière,  with  orders 
from  Jean  Oullier  to  come  to  the  château  at  once  if  the 
soldiers  should  go  in  the  direction  of  the  house  where  the 
fugitives  had  taken  refuge.  This  mission  he  had  fulfilled 
to  the  letter. 

The  marquis,  to  whom  of  course  Jean  Oullier  had  told 
how  he  left  Petit-Pierre  and  the  Comte  de  Bonneville  in 
Pascal  Picaut's  house,  was  terribly  alarmed. 

"Jean  Oullier  !  Jean  Oullier  !  "  he  kept  repeating,  in  the 
tone  of  Augustus  calling,  "  Varus  !  Varus  !  "  "  Jean  Oullier, 
why  did  you  trust  others  instead  of  yourself  ?  If  any  mis- 
fortune has  happened  my  poor  house  will  be  dishonored 
before  it  is  ruined  !  " 

Jean  Oullier  did  not  answer;  he  held  his  head  down 
gloomily,  in  silence.  This  silence  and  immovability  exas- 
perated the  marquis. 

"My  horse  !  my  horse,  Jean  Oullier  !  "  he  cried;  "and 
if  that  lad,  whom  yesterday,  not  knowing  who  he  was,  I 
called  my  young  friend,   is  made  prisoner  by  the  Blues, 


BARON    MICHEL    BERTHA'S    AIDE-DE-CAMI'.  399 

let  us  show  by  dying  to  deliver  him  that  we  were  not 
unworthy  of  his  confidence." 

But  Jean  Oullier  shook  his  head. 

"What  !  "  exclaimed  the  marquis;  "don't  you  mean  to 
fetch  my  horse  ?  " 

"Jean  is  right,"  said  Bertha,  who  had  come  upon  the 
scene  and  had  heard  her  father's  order  and  Jean  Oullier's 
refusal;  "we  must  not  risk  anything  by  precipitate  action." 
Turning  to  the  scout,  she  asked,  "  Did  you  see  the  soldiers 
leave  Ficaut's  house  with  prisoners  ?  " 

"No;  I  saw  them  knock  down  the  gars  Malherbe,  whom 
Jean  Oullier  stationed  on  the  rise  of  the  hill,  and  I  watched 
them  till  they  entered  Ficaut's  orchard.  Then  I  came 
here  at  once,   as  Jean  Oullier  ordered  me  to  do." 

"Are  you  sure,  Jean  Oullier,"  said  Bertha,  "that  you 
can  answer  for  the  faithfulness  of  the  woman  in  whose 
charge  you  left  them  ?  " 

"Yesterday,"  he  said,  giving  Bertha  a  reproachful  look, 
"  I  should  have  said  of  Marianne  Ficaut  that  I  could  trust 
her  as  myself  ;  but  —  " 

"But  ?  "  questioned  Bertha. 

"But  to-day,"  said  the  old  man,  with  a  sigh,  "I  doubt 
everything." 

"Come,  come  !"  cried  the  marquis;  "all  this  is  time 
lost.  My  horse  !  bring  my  horse  !  and  in  ten  minutes  I 
shall  know  the  truth." 

But  Bertha  stopped  him. 

"Ha  !  "  he  exclaimed;  "is  this  the  way  I  am  obeyed  in 
this  house?  What  can  I  expect  from  others  if  in  my  own 
family  no  one  obeys  my  orders  ?  " 

"Your  orders  are  sacred,  father,"  said  Bertha,  —  "to 
your  daughters,  above  all  ;  but  your  ardor  is  carrying  you 
away.  Do  not  forget  that  those  for  whose  safety  we  are 
so  anxious  are  merely  peasants  in  the  eyes  of  others.  If 
the  Marquis  de  Souday  goes  himself  in  search  of  two  miss- 
ing peasants  their  importance  will  be  known  directly,  and 
the  news  will  reach  our  enemies." 


400  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Mademoiselle  Bertha  is  right,"  said  Jean  Oullier;  "it 
is  better  for  me  to  go." 

"  Not  you,  any  more  than  my  father,  "  said  Bertha. 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  you  run  too  great  a  risk  in  going  over  there." 

"I  went  there  this  morning;  and  if  I  ran  that  risk  to 
find  out  whose  ball  killed  my  poor  Pataud,  I  can  certainly 
do  the  same  to  learn  news  of  M.  de  Bonneville  and  Petit- 
Pierre." 

"I  tell  you,  Jean,"  persisted  Bertha,  "that  after  all  that 
happened  yesterday  you  must  not  show  yourself  where  the 
soldiers  are.  We  must  find  some  one  who  is  not  com- 
promised, and  who  can  get  to  the  heart  of  the  matter 
without  exciting  suspicion." 

"How  unlucky  that  that  animal  of  a  Loriot  would  go 
back  to  Machecoul  !"  said  the  marquis.  "I  begged  him 
to  stay;  I  had  a  presentiment  that  I  should  want  him." 

"  Well,  have  n't  you  Monsieur  Michel  ?  "  said  Jean 
Oullier,  in  a  sarcastic  tone;  "you  can  send  him  to  the 
Picaut's  house,  or  anywhere  else,  without  suspicion.  If 
there  were  ten  thoiisand  men  guarding  it  they  'd  let  him 
in  ;  and  no  one,  I  am  sure,  would  imagine  he  came  on  any 
business  of  yours." 

"Yes;  he  is  just  the  person  we  want,"  said  Bertha, 
accepting  the  support  thus  given  to  her  secret  purpose, 
and  ignoring  Jean  Oullier's  malicious  intention  in  making 
it.     "Isn't  he,  father?" 

"  On  my  soul,  I  think  so  !  "  cried  the  marquis.  "  Though 
he  is  rather  effeminate  in  appearance,  the  young  man  may 
turn  out  very  useful." 

At  the  first  rumor  of  alarm  Michel  had  approached  the 
marquis,  as  if  awaiting  orders.  When  he  heard  Bertha's 
proposition,  and  saw  it  accepted  by  her  father,  his  face 
became  radiant.     Bertha  herself  was  beaming. 

"  Are  you  ready  to  do  all  that  is  necessary  for  the  safety 
of  Petit-Pierre,  Monsieur  Michel  ?  "  she  said. 

"I  am  ready  to  do  anything  you  wish,  mademoiselle,  in 


BAKON    MICHEL   BERTHA'S   AIDE-DE-CAMP.  40 1 

order  to  prove  my  gratitude  to  Monsieur  le  marquis  for  the 
friendly  welcome  I  have  received  from  liim." 

"Very  good.  Then  take  a  horse  —  not  mine;  it  would 
be  recognized  —  and  gallop  over  there.  Go  into  the  house 
unarmed,  as  though  curiosity  alone  brought  you,  and  if  our 
friends  are  in  danger  light  a  fire  of  brush  on  the  heath. 
During  that  time  Jean  Oullier  will  assemble  his  men;  and 
then,  in  a  body  and  well-armed,  we  can  fly  to  the  support 
of  those  so  dear  to  us." 

"Bravo  !  "  cried  the  Marquis  de  Souday;  "I have  always 
said  that  Bertha  was  the  strong-minded  one  of  the  family." 

Bertha  smiled  with  pride  and  looked  at  Michel. 

"And  you,"  she  said  to  her  sister,  who  had  now  come 
down  and  joined  them  quietly,  just  as  Michel  departed  to 
get  his  horse,  —  "and  you,  don't  you  mean  to  dress  and  go 
with  us  ?  " 

"No,"  replied  Mary. 

"  Why  not  ?  " 

"I  mean  to  stay  as  I  am." 

"  Oh  !  you  can't  mean  it  !  " 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  said  Mary,  with  a  sad  smile.  "In  an  army 
there  are  always  sisters  of  mercy  to  care  for  the  fighting 
men  and  comfort  them;  I  shall  be  the  sister  of  mercy." 

Bertha  looked  at  Mary  with  amazement.  She  may  have 
been  about  to  question  her  as  to  this  sudden  change  of 
mind;  but  at  that  instant  Michel,  already  mounted  on  the 
horse  provided  for  him,  re-appeared,  and  approaching 
Bertha  stopped  the  words  upon  her  lips.  Addressing  her 
as  the  one  to  whom  he  looked  for  orders,  he  said:  — 

"  You  told  me  what  I  was  to  do  in  case  some  mis  fortune 
has  happened  at  the  Picaut  house,  mademoiselle;  but  you 
have  not  told  me  what  to  do  in  case  I  find  Petit-Pierre  safe 
and  well." 

"In  that  case,"  said  the  marquis,  "come  back  here,  and 
set  our  minds  at  ease." 

"No,  no,"  said  Bertha,  who  was  determined  to  give  the 
man  she  loved  some  important  part  to  play;  "such  goings 

VOL.   I. —  26 


402  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

to  and  fro  would  excite  suspicion  in  the  various  troops  now 
stationed  about  the  forest.  You  had  better  stay  at  the 
Picauts'  or  in  the  neighborhood  till  nightfall,  and  then  go 
and  wait  for  us  at  the  July  oak.  You  know  where  that 
is,  don't  you  ?  " 

"I  should  think  so  !  "  said  Michel;  " it  is  on  the  road  to 
Souday." 

Michel  knew  every  oak  and  every  tree  on  that  road. 

"Very  good  !"  said  Bertha;  "we  will  be  in  the  woods 
near  by.  Make  the  signal,  —  three  cries  of  the  screech- 
owl  and  one  hoot,  —  and  we  will  join  you.  Go  on,  dear 
Monsieur  Michel." 

Michel  bowed  to  the  marquis  and  to  the  two  young 
ladies.  Then,  bending  forward  over  the  neck  of  his  horse, 
he  started  at  a  gallop.  He  was,  in  truth,  an  excellent 
rider,  and  Bertha  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  turn- 
ing short  out  of  the  porte  cochère,  he  had  very  cleverly 
made  his  horse  change  step. 

"  It  is  amazing  how  easy  it  is  to  make  a  well-bred  gentle- 
man out  of  a  rustic  like  that,"  said  the  marquis,  re-entering 
the  château.  "  It  is  true  that  women  must  have  a  finger  in 
it.     That  young  man  is  really  passable." 

"  Oli,  yes  ;  well-bred  gentlemen,  indeed  !  They  are  easy 
enough  to  make;  but  men  of  heart  and  soul  are  another 
thing,"  muttered  Jean  Oullier. 

"Jean  Oullier,"  said  Bertha,  "you  are  forgetting  my 
advice.     Take  care." 

"You  are  mistaken,  mademoiselle,"  replied  Jean  Oullier. 
"  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  because  I  have  forgotten  nothing 
that  you  see  me  so  troubled.  I  thought  my  aversion  to 
that  young  man  might  be  remorse,"  he  muttered;  "but  I 
begin  to  fear  it  is  presentiment." 

"  Bemorse  !  —  you,  Jean  Oullier  ?  " 

"  Ah  !  did  you  hear  what  I  said  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"Well,  I  don't  unsay  it." 

-'What  remorse  have  you  about  him?  " 


BARON   MICHEL   BERTHA'S   AIDE-DE-CAMP.  40o 

"None  about  him,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  in  a  gloomy  voie  ; 
"  I  meant  his  father.  " 

"His  father  ?  "  said  Bertha,  shivering  in  spite  of  herself. 

"Yes,"  said  Jean  Chillier.  "My  name  was  changed  in  a 
day  because  of  him;   I  was  no  longer  Jean  Oullier." 

"  What  were  you  then  ?  " 

"Chastisement." 

"  On  his  father  ?  " 

Then,  remembering  all  that  was  told  in  the  region,  of  the 
death  of  Baron  Michel  the  older,  she  exclaimed:  — 

"His  father  !  found  dead  at  a  hunt  !  Ah,  miserable 
man  !  what  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  That  the  son  may  avenge  his  father  by  bringing  mourn- 
ing for  mourning  upon  us." 

"  In  what  way  ?  " 

"Through  you,  and  because  you  love  him  madly." 

"  What  of  that  ?  " 

"I  can  myself  assure  you  of  one  thing." 

"  And  that  is  ?  " 

"That  he  does  not  love  you." 

Bertha  shrugged  her  shoulders  disdainfully;  but  the 
blow  nevertheless  reached  her  heart.  A  feeling  that  was 
almost  hatred  to  the  old  Vendéan  came  over  her. 

"Employ  yourself  in  collecting  your  men,  Jean  Oullier," 
she  said. 

"I  obey  you,  mademoiselle,"  replied  the  Chouan. 

He  went  toward  the  gate.  Bertha  returned  to  the  house, 
without  giving  him  another  look.  But  before  leaving  the 
château,  Jean  Oullier  called  up  the  peasant  who  had  brought 
the  news. 

"  Before  the  soldiers  got  to  Picaut's  house  did  you  see 
any  one  else  go  in  there  ?  " 

"To  Joseph's  place,  or  Pascal's  ?" 

"Pascal's." 

"Yes,  I  saw  one  man  go  in." 

"Who  was  he?" 

"The  mayor  of  La  Logerie." 


•iO-i  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"You  say  he  went  into  Pascal's  part  of  the  house  ?" 

"  I  am  sure  of  it.  " 

"  You  saw  him  ?  " 

"As  plain  as  I  see  you." 

"Which  way  did  he  go  when  he  left  it  ?  " 

"Toward  Machecoul." 

"  The  same  way  by  which  the  soldiers  came  soon  after, 
was  n't  it  ?  " 

"Exactly;  it  wasn't  half  an  hour  after  he  left  before 
they  came." 

"  Good  !  "  ejaculated  Jean  Oullier.  Shaking  his  clenched 
fist  in  the  direction  of  La  Logerie,  he  muttered  to  himself, 
"Ah,  Courtin  !  Courtin  !  you  are  tempting  God.  My  dog 
killed  yesterday,  this  treachery  to-day,  —  you  try  my 
patience  too  far  !  " 


MAÎTEE   JACQUES   AND   lUti   BABBITS.  40î 


XLIV. 
MAÎTRE   JACQUES    AND    HIS    RABBITS. 

To  the  south,  of  Machecoul,  forming  a  triangle  round  the 
village  of  Lege,  stretch  three  forests.  They  are  called 
respectively  the  forests  of  Touvois,  Grandes-Landes,  and 
La  Roche-Servière. 

The  territorial  importance  of  these  forests  is  not  great 
if  considered  separately;  hut  standing  each  within  three 
kilometres  of  the  others,  and  connected  by  hedges  and 
fields  full  of  gorse  and  brambles,  even  more  numerous 
there  than  elsewhere  in  La  Vendée,  they  form  a  very  con- 
siderable agglomeration  of  woodland.  The  result  has  been 
that  in  times  of  civil  war  they  became  a  very  hot-bed  of 
revolt,  where  insurrection  was  fostered  and  concentrated 
before  it  spread  through  the  adjacent  regions. 

The  village  of  Lege,  besides  being  the  native  place  of 
the  famous  physician  Jolly,  was,  almost  continuously, 
Charette's  headquarters  during  the  great  war.  It  was 
there,  in  the  thick  belt  of  woodland  surrounding  the  vil- 
lage that  he  took  refuge  if  defeated,  reformed  his  decimated 
battalions,  and  prepared  for  other  fights. 

In  1832,  although  a  new  road  from  Nantes  to  the  Sables- 
d'Olonne,  which  runs  through  Lege,  had  modified  in  a 
measure  its  strategic  strength,  the  wooded  neighborhood 
was  still  the  most  formidable  centre  of  the  insurrectionary 
movement  then  organized.  The  three  forests  hid,  in  their 
impenetrable  undergrowth  of  holly  and  ferns  which  grew 
under  the  shadow  of  the  great  thickets,  those  bands  of 
refractories  (conscripts  escaping  service)  whose  ranks  were 


406  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

daily  increasing  and  forming  the  kernel  of  the  insurrec- 
tionary divisions  in  the  Eetz  region  and  on  the  plains. 

The  clearings  made  by  government,  even  the  felling  of 
a  considerable  portion  of  the  wood,  had  no  perceptible 
result.  It  was  rumored  that  the  deserters  had  excavated 
underground  dwellings,  like  those  the  first  Chouans  bur- 
rowed in  the  forests  of  Gralla,  in  the  depths  of  which  they 
had  so  often  defied  the  closest  search.  In  this  particular 
case  rumor  was  riot  mistaken. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  day  when,  as  we  have  seen, 
Michel  started  on  horseback  from  the  château  de  Souday 
toward  the  Picaut  cottage,  any  one  who  had  stood  con- 
cealed behind  one  of  the  huge  centennial  beeches  that 
surround  the  glade  of  Folleron  in  the  forest  of  Touvois, 
would  have  seen  a  curious  sight. 

At  the  hour  when  the  sun,  sinking  toward  the  hori- 
zon, left  a  sort  of  twilight  behind  it,  —  an  hour  when  the 
wood-paths  were  already  in  a  shadow  that  seemed  to  rise 
from  the  earth,  while  the  tree-tops  were  still  burnished 
with  the  last  rays  of  the  dying  sunlight,  —  this  concealed 
spectator  would  have  seen  in  the  distance,  and  coming 
toward  him,  a  personage  whom,  with  a  very  slight  stretch 
of  fancy,  he  might  have  taken  for  some  uncanny  or  impish 
being.  This  personage  advanced  slowly,  looking  cau- 
tiously about  him,  — a  matter  which  seemed  to  be  the  more 
easy  because,  at  first  sight,  he  appeared  to  have  two  heads, 
with  which  to  keep  a  double  watch  over  his  safety. 

He  was  clothed  in  the  sordid  rags  of  an  old  jacket  and 
the  semblance  of  a  pair  of  breeches,  the  original  cloth  of 
which  had  completely  disappeared  beneath  the  multifarious 
patches  of  many  colors  with  which  its  decay  had  been 
remedied;  and  he  appeared,  as  we  have  said,  to  belong  to 
the  class  of  bicephalous  monsters  who  occupy  a  distin- 
guished place  among  the  choice  exceptions  which  Nature 
delights  to  create  in  her  fantastic  moments. 

The  two  heads  were  entirely  distinct  the  one  from  the 
other,  and  though  they  apparently  came   from   the   same 


MAÎTBE    JACQUES    AND    HIS    RABBITS.  407 

trunk  there  was  no  family  resemblance  between  them. 
Beside  a  broad  and  brick-dust  colored  face,  seamed  with 
small-pox  and  covered  with  unkempt  beard,  appeared  a 
second  face,  less  repulsive,  very  astute,  and  rather  malign 
in  its  ugliness,  whereas  the  other  countenance  expressed 
only  a  sort  of  idiocy  which  might  at  times  amount  to 
ferocity. 

These  two  distinct  countenances  did,  in  truth,  belong  to 
two  men,  whose  acquaintance  we  have  already  made  at 
Montaigu  on  the  day  of  the  fair;  namely,  to  Aubin  Courte- 
Joie,  the  tavern  keeper,  and  —  if  the  reader  will  pardon  an 
almost  too  expressive  name,  but  one  we  think  Ave  have  no 
right  to  change  —  to  Trigaud  the  Vermin,  the  beggar,  whose 
herculean  strength,  it  will  be  remembered,  played  a  noted 
part  in  the  riot  at  Montaigu  by  lifting  the  general's  leg 
from  the  stirrup  and  throwing  him  out  of  his  saddle. 

By  a  judicious  arrangement,  which  we  have  already 
mentioned,  Aubin  Courte-Joie  had  supplemented,  or  re- 
completed,  his  own  personality  by  the  help  of  this  species 
of  beast  of  burden  whom  he  had,  by  good  luck,  encountered 
on  bis  path  through  life.  In  exchange  for  the  two  legs 
he  had  left  on  the  road  to  Ancenis,  the  truncated  cripple 
had  obtained  a  pair  of  steel  limbs,  which  resisted  all 
fatigue,  feared  no  task,  and  served  him  as  his  own  original 
legs  never  did  and  never  could  have  done,  —  legs,  in  short, 
which  did  his  will  with  passive  obedience,  and  had  reached, 
after  a  certain  period  of  association,  such  adaptability  that 
they  instinctively  guessed  the  very  thoughts  of  Aubin 
Courte-Joie,  if  conveyed  by  a  mere  word,  a  single  sign,  or 
even  a  slight  touch  of  a  hand  on  the  shoulder  or  a  knee  on 
the  flank. 

The  strangest  part  of  this  affair  was  that  the  least  satis- 
fied partner  in  the  firm  was  not  Trigaud- Vermin;  quite 
the  contrary.  His  thick  brain  knew  that  Aubin  Courte- 
Joie  was  directing  his  physical  strength  in  the  direction 
of  his  sympathies.  The  words  "White"  and  "Blue," 
which  dropped  into  his  large  ears,  always  pricked  up  and 


408  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

listening,  proved  to  him  that  he  supported,  in  his  quality 
of  locomotive  to  the  tavern-keeper,  a  cause  whose  worship 
was  the  one  glimmer  of  light  which  had  survived  the  col- 
lapse of  his  brain.  He  made  it  his  glory.  His  confidence 
in  Aubin  Courte- Joie  was  boundless;  he  was  proud  of 
being  linked  body  and  soul  to  a  mind  whose  superiority 
he  recognized,  and  he  was  now  attached  to  the  man  who 
might  indeed  be  called  his  master,  with  the  self-abnegation 
that  characterizes  all  attachments  which  instinct  governs. 

Trigaud  carried  Aubin  sometimes  on  his  back,  sometimes 
on  his  shoulders,  but  always  as  affectionately  as  a  mother 
carries  her  child.  He  took  the  utmost  care  of  him;  he 
showed  him  little  attentions  which  seemed  to  disprove  the 
poor  devil's  actual  idiocy.  He  never  thought  of  watching 
his  own  feet  or  guarding  them  from  the  cutting  and  wound- 
ing of  stones  and  briers;  but  he  carefully  held  aside,  as  he 
walked  along,  the  bushes  or  branches  which  he  thought 
might  rub  the  body  or  scratch  the  face  of  his  rider. 

When  they  had  advanced  about  a  third  of  the  way  into 
the  open,  Aubin  Courte-Joie  touched  Trigaud  on  the 
shoulder,  and  the  giant  stopped  short.  Then,  without 
needing  to  speak,  the  innkeeper  pointed  with  his  finger  to 
a  large  stone  lying  at  the  foot  of  an  enormous  beech-tree, 
in  the  right-hand  corner  of  the  clearing. 

The  giant  advanced  to  the  beech,  picked  up  the  stone, 
and  awaited  orders. 

"  Now,"  said  Aubin  Courte-Joie,  "  strike  three  blows." 

Trigaud  did  as  he  was  told,  timing  the  blows  so  that  the 
second  followed  the  first  rapidly,  and  the  third  did  not 
sound  until  after  a  certain  interval. 

At  this  signal,  which  was  made  on  the  trunk  of  the  tree, 
a  little  square  of  turf  and  moss  rose  from  the  ground,  and 
a  head  beneath  it. 

"Ho!  it's  you,  is  it,  Maître  Jacques?  What's  the 
watch-dog  doing  at  the  mouth  of  the  burrow  ?  "  asked 
Aubin,  visibly  pleased  at  meeting  with  an  intimate 
acquaintance. 


MAÎTRE   JACQUES   AND    HIS   RABBITS.  40(J 

"Hey  !  my  gars  Courte-Joie,  this  is  the  hour  for  busi- 
ness, don't  you  see;  and  I  never  like  to  let  my  rabbits  out 
till  I  make  sure  myself  the  hunters  are  not  about." 

"And  you  are  right,  Maître  Jacques;  you  are  right," 
replied  Courte- Joie;  "to-day,  especially,  for  there  are  lots 
of  guns  on  the  plain." 

"  Hey,  how  '"s  that,  tell  me  ?  " 

"That 's  what  I  want  to  do." 

"  But  first,  won't  you  come  in  ?  " 

"Oh,  no;  no,  Jacques.     It  is  hot  enough  where  we  are, 

—  is  n't  it  Trigaud  ?  " 

The  giant  uttered  a  grunt  which  might,  at  a  pinch,  pass 
for  an  affirmation. 

"  Goodness  !  why,  he  's  speaking  !  "  remarked  Maître 
Jacques.  "  They  used  to  say  he  was  dumb.  You  are  in 
luck  's  way,  gars  Trigaud,  to  be  taken  into  Aubin's  good 
graces  ;  do  you  know  that  ?  Why,  you  are  almost  a  man, 
not  to  speak  of  having  your  board  and  lodging  sure  ;  and 
that 's  more  than  all  dogs  can  say,  —  even  those  at  the 
castle  of  Souday." 

The  beggar  opened  his  large  mouth  and  began  a  chuckle 
of  laughter,  which  he  did  not  end,  for  a  motion  of  Aubin's 
hand  stopped  in  the  cavities  of  his  larynx  that  impulse  to 
hilarity  which  his  powerful  lungs  rendered  dangerous. 

"Hush!  lower!  lower,  Trigaud!"  he  said,  roughly. 
Then  turning  to  Maître  Jacques,  "  He  thinks  he  is  in  the 
market-place  of  Montaigu,  poor  innocent  !  " 

"Well,  as  you  won't  come  in,  I  '11  call  out  the  gars. 
You're  right,  my  Courte-Joie;  it  is  devilish  hot  inside. 
Some  of  'em  say  they  are  roasted;  but  you  know  how  such 
fellows  grumble." 

"That's  not  like  Trigaud,"  replied  Aubin,  pounding 
with  his  fist,  by  way  of  a  caress,  on  the  head  of  the  ele- 
phant who  served   him  as   steed;    "he   never  complains, 

—  not  he  !  " 

Trigaud  gave  a  nod  of  gratitude  for  the  signs  of  friend- 
ship with  which  Courte-Joie  honored  him. 


410  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

Maître  Jacques,  whom  we  have  just  presented  to  our 
readers,  but  with  whom  it  remains  i'or  us  to  make  them 
fully  acquainted,  was  a  man  of  fifty  to  fifty -five  years  of 
age,  who  had  all  the  external  appearance  of  a  worthy  farmer 
of  the  Retz  region.  Though  his  hair  was  long  and  floated 
on  his  shoulders,  his  beard,  on  the  contrary,  was  cut  close 
and  shaved  with  the  utmost  care.  He  wore  a  perfectly 
clean  jacket  of  gray  cloth,  cut  in  a  shape  that  was  almost 
modern  compared  with  those  that  were  still  in  use  in  La 
Vendée,  and  a  waistcoat,  also  of  cloth,  in  broad  stripes,  alter- 
nately white  and  fawn-colored.  Breeches  of  coarse  brown 
cloth  and  gaiters  of  blue  twilled  cotton  were  the  only  part 
of  his  costume  which  resembled  that  of  his  compatriots. 

A  pair  of  pistols,  with  shining  handles,  stuck  into  his 
jacket,  were  the  only  military  signs  he  bore  at  this  moment. 
But  in  spite  of  his  placid,  good-humored  face,  Maître 
Jacques  was  really  the  leader  of  the  boldest  band  in  the 
whole  region,  and  the  most  determined  Chouan  to  be  found 
in  a  circuit  of  fifty  miles,  throughout  which  he  enjoyed  a 
very  formidable  reputation. 

Maître  Jacques  had  never  seriously  laid  down  his  arms 
during  the  whole  fifteen  years  that  Napoleon's  power 
lasted.  With  two  or  three  men  —  oftener  alone  and  iso- 
lated —  he  had  managed  to  make  head  against  whole 
brigades  detailed  to  capture  him.  His  courage  and  his 
luck  were  something  supernatxiral,  and  gave  rise  to  an  idea 
among  the  superstitious  population  of  the  Bocage  that  his 
life  was  invulnerable,  and  that  the  balls  of  the  Blues  were 
harmless  against  him.  When,  therefore,  after  the  revolu- 
tion of  July,  in  fact,  during  the  very  first  days  of  August, 
1830,  Maître  Jacques  announced  that  he  should  take  the 
field,  all  the  refractories  of  the  neighborhood  flocked  to 
his  standard,  and  it  was  not  long  before  he  had  under  his 
orders  a  considerable  body  of  men,  with  whom  he  had 
already  begun  the  second  series  of  his  guerilla  exploits. 

After  asking  Aubin  Courte-Joie  to  excuse  him  for  a  few 
moments,  Maître  Jacques,  who,  for  the  purposes  of  con- 


MAÎTRE   JACQUES   AND    HIS    RABBITS.  411 

versation  had  put  first  his  head  and  then  his  bust  above 
the  trap-door,  now  stooped  down  into  the  opening,  and  gave 
a  curiously  modulated  whistle.  At  this  signal  a  hum  arose 
from  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  much  like  that  of  a  hive  of 
bees.  Then,  close  by,  between  two  bushes,  a  wide  sort  of 
lid  or  skylight,  covered  only  with  turf  and  moss  and  dried 
leaves,  exactly  like  the  ground  beside  it,  rose  vertically, 
supported  on  four  stakes  at  the  four  corners.  As  it  rose 
it  revealed  the  opening  to  a  sort  of  grain-pit,  very  broad 
and  very  deep;  and  from  this  pit  about  twenty  men  now 
issued,  one  after  another,  in  succession. 

The  dress  of  these  men  had  nothing  of  the  elegant  piefcu- 
resqueness  which  characterizes  brigands  as  we  see  them 
issue  from  pasteboard  caverns  at  the  Opéra-Comique,  — 
far,  very  far  from  that.  Some  wore  uniforms  which  closely 
resembled  the  rags  on  Trigaud- Vermin's  person;  others  — 
and  these  were  the  most  elegant  —  wore  cloth  jackets. 
But  the  jackets  of  the  greater  number  were  of  cotton. 

The  same  diversity  existed  in  their  weapons.  Two  or 
three  regulation  muskets,  half  a  dozen  sporting  guns,  and 
as  many  pistols  formed  the  entire  equipment  of  firearms. 
The  display  of  side-arms  was  far  from  being  as  respecta- 
ble; it  consisted  solely  of  Maître  Jacques's  sabre,  two 
pikes  dating  back  to  the  old  war,  and  eight  or  ten  scythes, 
carefully  sharpened  by  their  owners. 

When  all  the  braves  had  issued  from  the  pit  into  the 
clearing.  Maître  Jacques  walked  up  to  She  trunk  of  a  felled 
tree,  on  which  he  sat  down.  Trigaud  placed  Aubin  Courte- 
Joie  beside  him,  after  which  the  giant  retired  a  few  steps, 
though  still  within  reach  of  his  partner's  signals. 

"Yes,  my  Courte- Joie,"  said  Maître  Jacques,  "the 
wolves  are  after  us  ;  but  it  gives  me  pleasure  to  have  you 
take  the  trouble  to  come  and  warn  me."  Then,  suddenly, 
"  Ah,  ça  !  "  he  cried  ;  "  how  happens  it  that  you  can  come  ? 
I  thought  you  were  caught  when  they  took  Jean  Oullier  ? 
Jean  Oullier  got  away,  I  know,  as  they  crossed  the  ford,  — 
there's  nothing   surprising   in   his   escape;   but  you,   my 


412  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

poor  footless  one,  —  how,  in  Heaven's  name,  did  you  get 
off?" 

"You  forget  Trigaud's  feet,"  replied  Aubin  Courte- Joie, 
laughing.  "  I  pricked  the  gendarme  who  held  me,  and  it 
seems  it  hurt  him,  for  he  let  go  of  me,  and  my  friend 
Trigaud  did  the  rest.  But  who  told  you  that,  Maître 
Jacques  ?  " 

"Maître  Jacques  shrugged  his  shoulders  with  an  indiffer- 
ent air.  Then,  without  replying  to  the  question,  which  he 
may  have  thought  an  idle  one, — 

"Ah,  ça!"  he  said;  "I  hope  you  haven't  come  to  tell 
me  that  the  day  is  changed  ?  " 

"No;  it  is  still  for  the  24th." 

"That 's  good,"  replied  Maître  Jacques;  "for  the  fact  is 
I  've  lost  all  patience  with  their  delays  and  their  shufflings. 
Good  Lord  !  where  's  the  need  of  such  a  fuss  to  pick  up 
one  's  gun,  say  good-bye  to  one's  wife,  and  be  off  ?  " 

"Patience  !  patience  !  you  won't  have  long  to  wait  now, 
Maître  Jacques." 

"  Four  days  !  "  said  the  other,  in  a  tone  of  disgust. 

"That's  not  long." 

"I  think  it  is  too  long  by  three.  I  didn't  have  Jean 
Oullier's  chance  to  do  for  some  of  them  at  the  springs  of 
Baugé." 

"Yes;  the  gars  told  me  about  that." 

"Unhappily,"  continued  Maître  Jacques,  "they  have 
taken  a  cruel  revenge  for  it." 

"How  so?" 

"  Have  n't  you  heard  ?  " 

"No;  I  have  just  come  straight  from  Montaigu." 

"Ah,  true;  then  you  can't  know." 

"What  happened.?  " 

"They  caught  and  killed  in  Pascal  Picaut's  house  a  fine 
young  man  I  respected,  — I,  who  don't  think  any  too  much 
of  his  class  usually." 

"  What  was  his  name  ?  " 

"Comte  de  Bonneville." 


MAITRE    JACQUES   AND    HIS    RABBITS  413 

"  Did  they  really  ?     When  was  it  ?  " 

"Why  this  very  day,  damn  it  !  about  two  in  the 
afternoon." 

"How,  in  the  devil's  name,  did  you  hear  that,  down  in 
your  pit,  Maître  Jacques  ?  " 

"  Don't  I  hear  everything  that  is  of  use  to  me  ?  " 

"Then  I  don't  know  that  there  's  any  use  in  my  telling 
you  what  brings  me  here." 

"  Why  not  ?  " 

"Because  you  probably  know  it." 

"That  may  be." 

"I  should  like  to  be  sure  whether  you  do  or  not." 

«  Pooh  !  " 

"Faith  !  yes,  I  should.  It  would  spare  me  a  disagree- 
able errand,  which  I  only  accepted  against  my  will." 

"  Ah  !  then  you  have  come  from  those  gentlemen  '.'  " 

Maître  Jacques  pronounced  the  words  we  have  under- 
scored in  a  tone  that  varied  from  contempt  to  menace. 

"Yes,  I  do,  in  the  first  instance,"  replied  Aubin  Courte- 
Joie;  "but  I  met  Jean  Oullier  on  my  way,  and  he,  too, 
gave  me  a  message  for  you." 

"Jean  Oullier  !  Ah  !  anything  that  comes  from  him  is 
welcome.  He  is  a  gars  I  love,  —  Jean  Oullier  !  He  has 
done  a  thing  in  his  life  which  made  me  his  friend  forever." 

"What  was  that  ?" 

"That's  his  secret,  not  mine.  But  come;  tell  me,  in 
the  first  place,  what  those  lordly  gentlemen  want  of  me  ?  " 

"It  is  your  division  leader  who  has  sent  me." 

"  The  Marquis  de  Souday  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"Well,  what  does  he  want  ?  " 

"He  complains  that  you  attract,  by  your  constant  sorties, 
the  attention  of  the  government  soldiers,  and  that  you 
irritate  the  population  of  the  towns  by  your  exactions,  and 
also  that  you  paralyze  the  general  movement  by  making  it 
more  difficult." 

"Pooh  !  why  have  n't  they  made  their  movement  sooner? 


414  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

We  have  waited  long  enough,  God  knows  Î  For  my  part, 
I  've  been  waiting  since  July  30." 

"And  then  —  " 

"  What  !  is  there  any  more  of  it  ?  " 

"Yes;  he  orders  you  —  " 

"  Orders  me  !  " 

"Wait  a  moment;  you  can  obey  or  not  obey,  but  he 
orders  you  —  " 

"Listen  to  me,  Courte- Joie;  whatever  he  orders  I  here 
make  a  vow  to  disobey  it.     Now,  go  on;  I  'in  listening." 

"Well,  he  orders  you  to  stay  quietly  in  your  quarters 
till  the  24th,  and,  above  all,  to  stop  no  diligence  nor  any 
traveller  on  the  highroad,  as  you  have  been  doing  lately." 

"Well,  I  swear,  for  my  part,"  replied  Maître  Jacques, 
"to  capture  the  first  person  that  goes  to-night  from  Lege 
to  Saint-Êtienne  or  from  Saint-Etienne  to  Lege.  As  for 
you,  stay  here,  gars  Courte-Joie,  and  then  you  can  tell  him 
what  you  have  seen." 

"  Oh,  no  !  no  !  "  exclaimed  Aubin. 

"Why  not?" 

"Don't  do  that,  Maître  Jacques." 

"Yes,  by  God  !  I  will,  though." 

"Jacques  !  Jacques  !  "  insisted  the  tavern-keeper;  "can't 
you  see  it  will  compromise  our  sacred  cause  ?  " 

"  Possibly  ;  but  it  will  prove  to  him  —  that  old  fox 
I  never  chose  for  my  superior  —  that  I  and  my  men  are 
outside  his  division,  and  that  here,  at  least,  his  orders  shall 
never  be  obeyed.  So  much  for  the  orders  of  the  Marquis 
de  Souday;  now  go  on  to  Jean  Oullier's  message." 

"  I  met  him  as  I  reached  the  heights  near  the  bridge  at 
Servières.  He  asked  where  I  was  going,  and  when  I  told 
him,  'Parbleu/'  said  he;  'that's  the  very  thing!  Ask 
Maître  Jacques  if  he  can  move  out  and  let  us  have  his 
earth-hole  for  some  one  we  want  to  hide  there.'  ' 

"  Ah,  ha  !  Did  he  say  who  the  person  was,  my  Courte- 
Joie  ?  " 

"No." 


MAÎTKE    JACQUES   AND    HIS    BABBITS.  415 

''Never  mind  !  Whoever  it  is,  if  he  comes  in  the  name 
of  Jean  Oullier,  he  '11  be  welcome;  for  I  know  Jean  Oullier 
wouldn't  turn  me  out  if  it  were  not  for  some  good  reason. 
He  is  not  one  of  the  crowd  of  lazy  lords  who  make  all  the 
noise  and  leave  us  to  do  the  work." 

"Some  are  good,  and  some  are  bad,"  said  Aubin, 
philosophically. 

"  When  is  the  person  he  wants  to  hide  coming  ?  "  asked 
Maître  Jacques. 

"To-night." 

"  How  shall  I  know  him  ?  " 

"Jean  Oullier  will  bring  him." 

"  Good.     Is  that  all  he  wants  ?  " 

"No;  he  wishes  you  to  capture  all  doubtful  persons  in 
the  forest  to-night,  and  have  the  whole  neighborhood 
watched,  more  especially  the  path  toward  Grand-Lieu." 

"There  now  !  just  see  that  !  The  division  commander 
orders  me  to  arrest  no  one,  and  Jean  Oullier  wants  me  to 
clear  the  forest  of  curs  and  red-breeches,  —  reason  the 
more  why  I  should  keep  the  oath  I  made  just  now. 
How  will  Jean  Oullier  know  that  I  shall  be  expecting 
him  ?  " 

"  If  he  can  come  —  that  is,  if  there  are  no  troops  in  the 
way  at  Touvois  —  I  am  to  let  him  know." 

"Yes;  but  how?" 

"By  a  branch  of  holly  with  fifteen  leaves  upon  it  in 
the  middle  of  the  road  half-way  along  to  Machecoul,  at 
the  crossways  of  Benaste,  the  tip  end  turned  toward 
Touvois." 

"Did  he  give  you  the  password?  Jean  Oullier  would 
surely  not  forget  that." 

"Yes;  'Vanquished  '  and  'Vendée.'  " 

"Very  good,"  said  Maître  Jacques,  rising  and  going  to 
the  middle  of  the  open.  There  he  called  four  of  his  men, 
gave  them  some  directions  in  a  low  voice,  and  all  four, 
without  replying,  went  off  in  four  different  directions. 
At   the   end  of  about   four   minutes,   during  which   time 


116  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Maître  Jacques  had  ordered  up  a  jug  of  what  seemed  to  be 
brandy,  and  had  offered  some  to  his  companion,  four  indi- 
viduals appeared  from  the  four  directions  in  which  the 
other  men  had  been  sent.  These  were  the  sentinels  just 
relieved  by  their  comrades. 

"  Any  news  ?  "  asked  Maître  Jacques. 

"No,"  replied  three  of  the  men. 

"  Good.  You,  —  what  do  you  say  ?  "  he  inquired  of  the 
fourth.     "'You  had  the  best  post." 

"The  diligence  to  Nantes  was  escorted  by  four  gen- 
darmes." 

"Ah,  ha  !  your  nose  is  good;  you  smell  specie.  Bless 
me  !  and  when  I  think  there  are  those  who  order  us  not  to 
get  it  !  However,  friends,  patience  !  we  are  not  to  be 
put  down." 

"  Well,  what  do  you  thiuk  ?  "  interrupted  Courte-Joie. 

"I  think  there's  not  a  pair  of  red  breeches  anywhere 
about.     Tell  Jean  Oullier  he  can  bring  his  people." 

"  Good  !  "  said  Courte-Joie,  who  during  this  examination 
of  the  sentries  was  preparing  a  branch  of  holly  in  the 
manner  agreed  upon  with  Jean  Oullier.  "Very  good; 
I'll  send  Trigaud."  Turning  toward  the  giant,  "Here, 
Vermin  !  "  he  said. 

Maître  Jacques  stopped  him. 

"Ah,  ça!"  he  exclaimed;  "are  you  crazy,  to  part  with 
your  legs  in  that  way  ?  Suppose  you  should  need  him  ? 
Nonsense  !  there  are  forty  men  here  who  would  like  no 
better  than  to  stretch  their  legs.  Wait,  you  shall  see  — 
Hi  !     Joseph  Picaut  !  " 

At  the  call,  our  old  acquaintance,  who  was  sleeping  on 
the  grass  in  a  sleep  he  seemed  much  to  need,  sat  up  and 
listened. 

"  Joseph  Picaut  !  "  repeated  Maître  Jacques,  impatiently. 

That  decided  the  man.  He  rose,  grumbling,  and  went 
up  to  Maître  Jacques. 

"Here  is  a  branch  of  holly,"  said  the  leader  of  the 
belligerents;   "don't   pluck   off   a  single   leaf.      Carry   it 


MAÎTRE    JACQUES   AND    HIS   BABBITS.  417 

immediately  to  the  crossway  of  La  Benaste  ou  the  road  to 
Machecoul,  and  lay  it  down  in  front  of  the  crucifix,  with 
its  tip-end  pointing  toward  Touvois." 

Maître  Jacques  crossed  himself  as  he  said  the  word 
"crucifix." 

"But  —  "  began  Picaut,  objecting. 

"  But?  —  what  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  I  mean  that,  after  four  hours  of  such  a  run  as  I  have 
just  made,  my  legs  are  breaking  under  me."' 

"Joseph  Picaut,"  replied  Maître  Jacques,  whose  voice 
grew  strident  and  metallic,  like  the  blare  of  a  trumpet, 
"you  left  your  parish  and  enrolled  yourself  in  my  band. 
You  came  here;  I  did  not  ask  you.  Now,  recollect  one 
thing:  at  the  first  objection  I  strike;  at  the  second  I 
kill." 

As  he  spoke  Maître  Jacques  pulled  a  pistol  from  his 
jacket,  grasped  it  by  the  barrel,  and  struck  a  vigorous 
blow  with  the  butt-end  on  Picaut's  head.  The  shock  was 
so  violent  that  the  peasant,  quite  bewildered,  came  down 
on  one  knee.  Probably,  without  the  protection  of  his  hat, 
which  was  made  of  thick  felt,  his  skull  would  have  been 
fractured. 

"  And  now,  go  !  "  said  Maître  Jacques,  calmly  looking 
to  see  if  the  blow  had  shaken  the  powder  from  the  pan. 

Without  a  word  Joseph  Picaut  picked  himself  up,  shook 
his  head,  and  went  off.  Courte-Joie  watched  him  till  he 
was  out  of  sight;  then  he  looked  at  Maître  Jacques. 

"  Do  you  allow  such  fellows  as  that  in  your  band  ?  "  he 
said. 

"Yes;  don't  speak  of  it  !" 

"Have  you  had  him  long  ?  " 

"No,  only  a  few  hours." 

"Bad  recruit  for  you." 

"I  don't  say  that  exactly.     He  is  a  brave  gars,  like  his 
father,  whom  I  knew  well;  only,  he  has  to  be  taught  to 
obey  like  my  fellows,  and  to  get  used  to  the  ways  of  the 
burrow.     He  '11  improve;  he  '11  improve." 
vol.  i.  —  27 


418  THE    LA.ST   VENDÉE. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  doubt  it  !  You  have  a  wonderful  way  of 
educating  them." 

"God  bless  me  !  I  've  been  at  it  a  good  while  !  But," 
continued  Maître  Jacques,  "it  is  time  for  my  round  of 
inspection,  and  I  shall  have  to  leave  you,  my  poor  Courte- 
Joie.  It  is  understood,  is  n't  it,  that  Jean  Oullier's 
friends  are  welcome  to  the  burrow.  As  for  the  division 
commander,  he  shall  have  his  answer  to-night.  You  are 
sure  that  is  all  gars  Oullier  told  you  to  say  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"Rummage  your  memory." 

"I  am  sure  that  is  all." 

"Very  well.  If  the  burrow  suits  him,  he  shall  have 
it,  — he  and  his  friends.  I  don't  bother  myself  about  my 
gars;  those  scamps,  they  are  like  mice,  —  they  have  more 
than  one  hole.  Good-bye  for  the  present,  gars  Aubin  ;  and 
while  you  are  waiting,  take  a  bite.  I  see  them  making 
ready  for  a  stew  down  there." 

Maître  Jacques  descended  into  what  he  called  his  bur- 
row. Then  he  came  out  a  moment  later,  armed  with  a 
carbine,  the  priming  of  which  he  examined  with  the  utmost 
care  ;  after  which  he  disappeared  among  the  trees. 

The  open  was  now  very  animated,  and  presented  a  most 
picturesque  effect.  A  large  fire  had  been  lighted  in  the 
burrow,  and  the  glare  coming  through  the  trap  illumined 
the  trees  and  bushes  with  fantastic  gleams.  The  supper 
of  the  men,  who  were  scattered  about  the  open,  was  cook- 
ing at  it,  while  the  men  waited.  Some,  on  their  knees, 
were  telling  their  beads;  others,  sitting  down,  sang  in  low 
tones  those  national  songs  whose  plaintive,  long-drawn 
melodies  were  so  in  keeping  with  the  character  of  the 
landscape.  Two  Bretons,  lying  on  their  stomachs  at  the 
mouth  of  the  burrow,  were  betting,  by  means  of  two  bones 
of  different  shades  of  color,  for  the  possession  of  sundry 
copper  coins,  while  another  gars  (who,  from  his  pallid 
face  and  shrivelled  skin.  —  shrivelled  with  fever,  —  was 
obviously  a  dweller  among  the  marshes)  employed  himself, 


MAÎTRE    JACQUES    AND    HIS   RABBITS.  419 

without  much  success,  in  cleaning  a  thick  coat  of  rust  from 
the  barrel  and  match-lock  of  an  old  carbine. 

Aubin  Courte-Joie,  accustomed  to  such  scenes,  paid  no 
attention  to  the  one  before  him.  Trigaud  had  made  him 
a  sort  of  couch  with  leaves,  and  he  was  now  seated  on 
this  improvised  mattress,  smoking  his  pipe  as  tranquilly 
as  if  in  his  tavern  at  Montaigu. 

Suddenly  he  fancied  he  heard  in  the  far  distance  the 
well-known  cry  of  alarm,  —  the  cry  of  the  screech-owl,  — 
but  modulated  in  a  certain  long-drawn-out  way  which  indi- 
cated danger.  Courte-Joie  whistled  softly  to  warn  the 
men  about  him  to  keep  silence  and  listen;  but  almost  at 
the  same  instant  a  shot  echoed  from  a  place  about  a 
thousand  steps  distant. 

In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  the  water-pails,  standing 
ready  for  this  very  use,  had  put  out  the  fire;  the  roof  was 
lowered,  the  trap  closed,  and  Maître  Jacques's  belliger- 
ents, among  them  Courte-Joie,  whom  his  physical  partner 
remounted  on  his  shoulders,  were  scattering  in  every 
direction  among  the  trees,  where  they  awaited  the  next 
signal  from  their  leader. 


420  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 


XLV. 

THE    DANGER    OF    MEETING    BAD    COMPANY    IN   THE   WOODS. 

It  was  nearly  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  when  Petit- 
Pierre,  accompanied  by  Baron  Michel,  now  her  guide  in 
place  of  poor  Bonneville,  left  the  cottage  where  she  had 
escaped  such  dangers. 

It  was  not,  as  we  can  readily  believe,  without  a  deep 
and  painful  emotion  that  Petit-Pierre  crossed  that  thresh- 
old and  left  the  cold,  inanimate  body  of  the  chivalrous 
young  man,  whom  she  had  known  for  a  few  days  only,  but 
already  loved  as  an  old  and  trusted  friend.  That  valiant 
heart  of  hers  had  a  momentary  sense  of  weakness  at  the 
thought  of  meeting  alone  the  perils  that  for  four  or  five 
days  poor  Bonneville  had  shared  with  her.  The  royal 
cause  had  only  lost  one  soldier,  yet  Petit-Pierre  felt  as 
though  an  army  was  gone. 

It  was  the  first  grain  of  the  bloody  seed  about  to  be 
sown  once  more  in  the  soil  of  La  Vendee;  and  Petit- 
Pierre  asked  herself  in  anguish  if,  indeed,  nothing  would 
come  of  it  but  regret  and  mourning. 

Petit-Pierre  did  not  insult  Marianne  Picaut  by  charg- 
ing her  to  take  good  care  of  the  body  of  poor  Bonne- 
ville. Strange  as  the  ideas  of  that  woman  may  have 
seemed  to  her,  she  understood  the  nobility  of  her  feelings, 
and  recognized  all  that  was  truly  good  and  profoundly 
religious  beneath  her  rough  exterior.  When  Michel 
brought  his  horse  to  the  door  and  reminded  Petit-Pierre 
that  every  moment  was  precious,  the  latter  turned  to  the 
widow  of  Pascal  Picaut,  and  holding  out  her  hand,  said  : 

"  How  can  I  thank  you  for  all  you  have  done  for  me  ?  w 


BAD    COMPANY    IN    THE    WOODS.  421 

"I  have  done  nothing  for  you,"  replied  Marianne;  "I 
have  paid  a  debt,  —  fulfilled  an  oath,  that  is  all." 

"Then,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  "you 
will  not  even  accept  my  gratitude  ?  " 

"If  you  are  determined  to  owe  me  something,"  said  the 
widow,  "do  this:  when  you  pray  for  those  who  are  dead 
add  to  your  prayers  a  few  words  for  those  who  have  died 
because  of  you." 

"  Then  you  think  I  have  some  credit  with  God  ?  "  said 
Petit-Pierre,  unable  to  keep  from  smiling  through  her 
tears. 

"Yes;  because  I  know  that  you  are  destined  to  suffer." 

"At  least,  you  will  accept  this,"  said  Petit-Pierre, 
unfastening  from  her  throat  a  little  medal  hanging  to  a 
slender  black  silk  cord.  "It  is  only  silver,  but  the  Holy 
Father  blessed  it  in  my  presence,  and  said  when  he  gave 
it  to  me  that  God  would  grant  the  prayers  uttered  over  it, 
if  they  were  just  and  pious." 

Marianne  took  the  medal.     Then  she  said  :  — 

"Thank  you.  On  this  medal  I  will  pray  to  God  that 
our  land  be  saved  from  civil  war,  and  that  He  will  ever 
preserve  its  grandeur  and  its  liberty." 

"Eight!"  said  Petit-Pierre;  "the  last  half  of  your 
prayer  will  be  echoed  in  mine." 

Aided  by  Michel,  she  mounted  the  horse  which  the 
young  man  led  by  the  bridle,  and  with  a  last  signal  of 
farewell  to  the  widow,  they  both  disappeared  behind  the 
hedge. 

For  some  minutes  Petit-Pierre,  whose  head  was  bowed 
on  her  breast,  swayed  to  the  motions  of  the  horse  and 
seemed  to  be  buried  in  deep  and  painful  reflections.  At 
last,  however,  she  made  an  effort  over  herself,  and  shaking 
off  the  grief  that  overcame  her,  she  turned  to  Michel,  wh> 
was  walking  beside  her. 

"Monsieur,"  she  said,  "I  already  know  two  things 
which  entitle  you  to  my  confidence:  first,  that  we  owed 
the  warning  that  troops  were  surrounding  the  chateau  de 


422  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

Souday  to  you;  second,  that  you  have  come  to  me  to-day 
in  the  name  of  the  marquis  and  his  charming  daughters. 
But  there  is  still  a  third  thing,  about  which  I  should  like 
to  know,  and  that  is,  who  you  are.  My  friends  are  rare 
under  present  circumstances,  and  I  like  to  know  their 
names  that  I  may  promise  not  to  forget  them." 

"I  am  called  Baron  Michel  de  la  Logerie,"  replied  the 
young  man. 

"  De  la  Logerie  !  Surely  this  is  not  the  first  time  I  have 
heard  that  name  ?  " 

"  Very  likely  not,  Madame,  "  said  the  young  man  ;  "  for 
our  poor  Bonneville  told  me  he  was  taking  your  Highness 
to  my  mother  —  " 

"  Stop,  stop  !  what  are  you  saying  ?  Your  Highness  ! 
There  is  no  highness  here  ;  I  see  only  a  poor  little  peasant- 
lad  named  Petit-Pierre." 

"  Ah,  true  ;  but  Madame  will  excuse  —  " 

"What  !  again?" 

"Pardon  me.  Our  poor  Bonneville  was  taking  you  to 
my  mother  when  I  had  the  honor  of  meeting  and  conduct- 
ing you  to  Souday." 

"  So  that  I  am  under  a  triple  obligation  to  you.  That 
does  not  disquiet  me;  for,  great  as  your  services  have 
been,  I  hope  the  time  will  come  when  I  can  discharge  my 
debt." 

Michel  stammered  a  few  words,  which  did  not  reach  the 
ears  of  his  companion.  But  the  latter's  words  seemed  to 
have  made  an  impression  on  him;  for  from  that  moment, 
while  obeying  the  injunction  to  refrain  from  a  certain 
deference,  he  redoubled  his  care  and  attention  to  the  per- 
sonage he  was  guiding. 

"But  it  seems  to  me,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  after  a  moment's 
thought,  "from  what  Monsieur  de  Bonneville  told  me, 
that  royalist  opinions  are  not  altogether  those  of  your 
family." 

"  No,  they  are  not,  Ma  —  mon  —  " 

"Call  me  Petit-Pierre,  or  do  not  call  me  anything;  that 


BAP  COMPANY  IN  THE  WOODS.  423 

is  the  only  way  to  avoid  embarrassment.  So  it  is  to  a 
conversion  that  I  owe  the  honor  of  having  you  for  my 
knight  ?  " 

"  An  easy  conversion  !  At  my  age  opinions  are  not  con- 
victions; they  are  only  sentiments." 

"You  are  indeed  very  young,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  looking 
at  her  guide. 

"I  am  nearly  twenty-one." 

Petit-Pierre  gave  a  sigh. 

"That  is  the  fine  age,"  she  said,  "for  love  or  war." 

The  young  man  heaved  a  deep  sigh,  and  Petit-Pierre, 
who  heard  it,  smiled  imperceptibly. 

"Ah  !  "  she  said;  "there  's  a  sigh  which  tells  me  many 
things  about  the  conversion  we  were  speaking  of  just  now. 
I  will  wager  that  a  pretty  pair  of  eyes  knows  something 
about  it,  and  that  if  the  soldiers  of  Louis-Philippe  were  to 
search  you  at  this  moment  they  would  find  a  scarf  that  is 
dearer  to  you  for  the  hands  that  embroidered  it  than  for 
the  principles  of  which  its  color  is  the  emblem." 

"I  assure  you,  Madame,"  stammered  Michel,  "that  is 
not  the  cause  of  my  determination." 

"Come,  come,  don't  defend  yourself;  all  that  is  true 
chivalry,  Monsieur  Michel.  We  must  never  forget,  whether 
we  descend  from  them  or  whether  we  seek  to  emulate  them, 
that  the  knights  of  old  placed  women  next  to  God  and  on 
the  level  of  kings,  combining  all  three  in  one  device.  Do 
not  be  ashamed  of  loving  !  Why,  that  is  your  greatest 
claim  to  my  sympathy  !  Ventre- saint- gris  !  as  Henri  IV. 
would  have  said;  with  an  army  of  twenty  thousand  lovers 
I  could  conquer  not  only  all  France,  but  the  world  ! 
Come,  tell  me  the  name  of  your  lady,  Monsieur  le  Baron 
de  la  Logerie." 

"Oh  !  "  exclaimed  Michel,  deeply  shocked. 

"Ah  !  I  see  you  are  discreet,  young  man.  T  congratu- 
late you;  it  is  a  quality  all  the  more  precious  because 
in  these  days  it  is  so  rare.  But  never  mind;  to  a 
travelling-companion  we   tell   all,  charging   him   to  keep 


424  THE   LAST   VENDÉE 

our  secret  inviolably.  Come,  shall  I  help  you  ?  I  will 
wager  that  we  are  now  going  toward  the  lady  of  our 
thoughts." 

"You  are  right  there." 

"And  I  will  further  wager  that  she  is  neither  more  nor 
less  than  one  of  those  charming  amazons  at  Souday." 

"  Good  heavens  !  who  could  have  told  you  ?  " 

"Well,  I  congratulate  you  again,  my  young  friend. 
Wolves  as  I  am  told  some  persons  call  them,  I  know  they 
have  brave  and  noble  hearts,  capable  of  bestowing  happi- 
ness on  the  husbands  they  select.  Are  you  rich,  Monsieur 
de  la  Logerie  ?  " 

"Alas,  yes  !  "  replied  Michel. 

"  So  much  the  better,  and  not  alas  at  all  !  You  can 
enrich  your  wife,  and  that  seems  to  me  a  great  happiness. 
In  all  cases,  in  all  loves,  there  are  certain  little  difficulties 
to  overcome,  and  if  Petit -Pierre  can  help  you  at  any  time 
you  have  only  to  call  upon  him;  he  will  be  most  happy  to 
recognize  in  that  way  the  services  you  have  been  good 
enough  to  render  him.  But,  if  I  'm  not  mistaken,  here 
comes  some  one  toward  us.  Listen;  don't  you  hear  a 
tread  ?  " 

The  steps  of  a  man  now  became  distinctly  audible. 
They  were  still  at  some  distance,  but  were  coming  nearer 

"I  think  the  man  is  alone,"  said  Petit-Pierre. 

"Yes;  but  we  must  not  be  the  less  on  our  guard,"  replied 
the  baron.  "I  shall  ask  your  permission  to  mount  that 
horse  in  front  of  you." 

"Willingly;  but  are  you  already  tired  ?" 

"No,  not  at  all.  Only,  I  am  well  known  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, and  if  I  were  seen  on  foot  leading  a  horse  on 
which  a  peasant  was  riding,  as  Haman  led  Mordecai,  it 
might  give  rise  to  a  good  deal  of  spéculation." 

"Bravo  !  what  you  say  is  very  time.  I  begin  to  think 
we  shall  make  something  of  you  in  the  end." 

Petit-Pierre  jumped  to  the  ground.  Michel  mounted; 
and  Petit-Pierre  placed  herself  humbly  behind  him.     They 


BAD    COMPANY    IN    THE    WOODS.  425 

were  hardly  settled  in  their  seats  before  they  came  within 
thirty  yards  of  an  individual  who  was  walking  in  their 
direction,  and  whose  steps  now  ceased  abruptly. 

"Oh  !  oh  !  "  said  Petit-Pierre;  "it  seems  that  if  we  are 
afraid  of  him,  he  is  afraid  of  us." 

"Who  's  there  ?"  called  Michel,  making  his  voice  gruff. 

"  Ah  !  is  it  you,  Monsieur  le  baron  ?  "  replied  the  man, 
advancing.  "The  devil  take  me  if  I  expected  to  meet  you 
here  at  this  hour  !  " 

"  You  told  the  truth  when  you  said  that  you  were  well 
known,"  whispered  Petit-Pierre,  laughing. 

"Yes,  unfortunately,"  said  Michel,  in  a  tone  which 
warned  Petit-Pierre  they  were  in  presence  of  a  real  danger. 

"  Who  is  this  man  ?  "  asked  Petit-Pierre. 

"  Courtin,  my  farmer,  —  the  one  we  suspect  of  denounc- 
ing your  presence  at  Marianne  Picaut's."  Then  he  added, 
in  a  vehement  and  imperative  tone,  which  made  his  com- 
panion aware  of  the  urgency  of  the  situation,  "  Hide  behind 
me  as  much  as  possible." 

Petit-Pierre  immediately  obeyed. 

"  Oh  !  it  is  you  Courtin,  is  it  ?  "  said  Michel. 

"Yes,  it  is  I,"  replied  the  farmer. 

"Where  do  you  come  from  ?  "  asked  Michel. 

"From  Machecoul;  I  went  there  to  buy  an  ox." 

"Where  is  your  ox?     I  don't  see  it." 

"No,  I  couldn't  make  a  trade.  These  damned  politics 
hinder  business,  and  there  's  nothing  now  in  the  market," 
said  Courtin,  who  was  carefully  examining,  as  well  as  he 
could  in  the  darkness,  the  horse  on  which  the  young  baron 
was  mounted. 

Then,  as  Michel  dropped  the  conversation,  he  con- 
tinued :  — 

"  But  how  is  it  you  are  turning  your  back  to  La  Logerie 
at  this  time  of  night  ?  " 

"That 's  not  surprising;  I  am  going  to  Souday." 

"Might  I  observe  that  you  are  not  altogether  on  the 
road  to  Souday  ?  " 


426  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  I  know  that  ;  but  I  was  afraid  the  road  was  guarded, 
so  I  have  made  a  circuit." 

"  In  that  case,  —  I  mean  if  you  are  really  going  to 
Souday, "  said  Courtin,  —  "I  think  I  ought  to  give  you  a 
bit  of  advice." 

"Well,  give  it;  sincere  advice  is  always  useful." 

"Don't  go;  the  cage  is  emptj^." 

"Pooh!" 

"Yes,  I  tell  you,  it  is  empty;  there's  no  use  in  youi 
going  there,  Monsieur  le  baron,  to  find  the  bird  who  has 
sent  you  scouring  the  country." 

"Who  told  you  that,  Courtin  ?"  said  Michel,  manoeuv- 
ring his  horse  so  as  to  keep  his  body  well  before  Courtin, 
and  thus  mask  Petit-Pierre  behind  him. 

"Who  told  me  ?  Hang  it  !  my  eyes  told  me;  I  saw 
them  all  file  out  of  the  courtyard,  the  devil  take  them  ! 
They  marched  right  past  me  on  the  road  to  Grandes- 
Landes." 

"  Were  the  soldiers  in  that  direction  ?  "  asked  the  young 
baron. 

Petit-Pierre  thought  this  question  rash,  and  she  pinched 
Michel's  arm. 

"  Soldiers  !  "  replied  Courtin;  "why  should  you  be  afraid 
of  soldiers?  But  if  you  are,  I  advise  you  not  to  risk  your- 
self at  this  time  of  night  on  the  plain.  You  can't  go  three 
miles  without  coming  plump  on  bayonets.  Do  a  wiser 
thing  than  that,  Monsieur  Michel." 

"What  do  you  advise  me  to  do  ?  Come,  if  your  way  is 
better  than  mine,  I  '11  take  it." 

"Go  back  with  me  to  La  Logerie;  you  will  give  your 
mother  great  satisfaction,  for  she  is  fretting  herself  to 
death  over  the  way  you  are  behaving." 

"  Maître  Courtin,  "  said  Michel,  "  I  '11  give  you  a  bit  of 
advice  in  exchange." 

"What  \s  that,  Monsieur  le  baron  ?  " 

"To  hold  your  tongue." 

"No,  I  cannot   hold   my  tongue,"  replied   the   farmer, 


BAD    COMPANY    IN    THE    WOODS.  427 

assuming  an  appearance  of  sorrowful  emotion,  —  "  no,  it 
grieves  me  too  much  to  see  my  young  master  exposed  to 
such  dangers,  and  all  for  —  " 

"Hush,  Courtin  !" 

"  For  those  cursed  she-wolves  whom  the  son  of  a  peasant 
like  myself  would  have  none  of." 

"Wretch  !  will  you  be  silent?"  cried  Michel,  raising 
his  whip. 

The  action,  which  Courtin  had  no  doubt  tried  to  pro- 
voke, caused  Michel's  horse  to  give  a  jump  forward,  and 
the  mayor  of  La  Logerie  was  now  abreast  of  the  two 
riders. 

"I  am  sorry  if  I  've  offended  you,  Monsieur  le  baron," 
he  said,  in  a  whining  tone.  "  Forgive  me  ;  but  I  have  n't 
slept  for  two  nights  thinking  about  it." 

Petit -Pierre  shuddered.  She  heard  the  same  false  and 
wheedling  voice  that  had  spoken  to  her  in  the  cottage  of 
the  Widow  Picaut,  followed,  after  the  speaker's  departure, 
by  such  painful  events.  She  made  Michel  another  sign, 
by  which  she  meant,  "  Let  us  get  rid  of  this  man  at  any 
cost." 

"Very  good,"  said  Michel;  "go  your  way  and  let  tis  go 
ours." 

Courtin  pretended  to  notice  for  the  first  time  that  Michel 
had  some  one  behind  him. 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  Why,  you  are  not 
alone  !  Ah  !  I  see  now,  Monsieur  le  baron,  why  you  were 
so  touchy  about  what  I  said.  Well,  monsieur,"  he  said, 
addressing  Petit-Pierre,  "  whoever  you  are,  I  am  sure  you 
will  be  more  reasonable  than  your  young  friend.  Join  me 
in  telling  him  there  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by  braving  the 
laws  and  the  power  of  the  government,  as  he  is  bent  on 
doing  to  please  those  wolves." 

"  Once  more,  Courtin,  "  said  Michel,  in  a  tone  that  was 
actually  menacing,  "I  tell  you  to  go.  I  act  as  I  think 
best,  and  I  consider  you  very  insolent  to  presume  to  judge 
of  my  conduct." 


428  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

But  Courtin,  whose  smooth  persistency  we  all  know  by 
this  time,  seemed  determined  not  to  depart  without  getting 
a  look  at  the  features  of  the  mysterious  personage  whom 
his  young  master  had  behind  him. 

"Come,"  he  said;  "to-morrow  you  can  do  as  you  like; 
but  to-night,  at  least,  come  and  sleep  at  the  farmhouse,  — 
you  and  the  person,  lady  or  gentleman,  who  is  with  you. 
I  swear  to  you,  Monsieur  le  baron,  that  there  is  danger  in 
being  out  to-night." 

"  There  is  no  danger  for  myself  and  my  companion,  for 
we  are  not  concerned  in  politics.  What  are  you  doing  to 
my  saddle,  Courtin  ?  "  asked  the  young  man  suddenly, 
noticing  a  movement  on  his  farmer's  part  which  he  did 
not  understand. 

"Why,  nothing,  Monsieur  Michel;  nothing,"  said  Cour- 
tin, with  perfect  good-humor.  "So  then,  you  positively 
won't  listen  to  my  advice  and  entreaties  ?  " 

"No;  go  your  way,  and  let  me  go  mine." 

"  Go,  then  !  "  exclaimed  the  farmer,  in  his  sly,  sarcastic 
tone;  "and  God  be  with  you.  Remember  that  poor 
Courtin  did  what  he  could  to  prevent  you  from  rushing 
into  danger." 

So  saying,  Courtin  finally  drew  aside,  and  Michel,  set- 
ting spurs  to  his  horse,  rode  past  him. 

"  Gallop  !  gallop  !  "  cried  Petit-Pierre.  "  That  is  the  man 
who  caused  poor  Bonneville's  death.  Let  us  get  on  as  fast 
as  we  can;  that  man  has  the  evil -eye." 

The  young  baron  stuck  both  spurs  into  his  horse;  but 
the  animal  had  hardly  gone  a  dozen  paces  before  the  saddle 
turned,  and  both  riders  came  heavily  to  the  ground.  Petit- 
Pierre  was  up  first. 

"  Are  you  hurt  ?  "  she  asked  Michel,  who  was  getting  up 
more  slowly. 

"  No,"  he  replied;  "but  I  am  wondering  how  —  " 

"How  we  came  to  fall  ?  That 's  not  the  question.  We 
did  fall,  and  there  's  the  fact.  Girth  your  horse  again, 
and  as  fast  as  possible." 


BAD    COMPANY    IN    THE    WOODS.  429 

"Aie!"  cried  Michel,  who  had  already  thrown  the  saddle 
over  his  horse's  back;  "  both  girths  are  broken  at  precisely 
the  same  height." 

"Say  they  are  cut,"  said  Petit-Pierre.  "It  is  a  trick  of 
your  internal  Courtin;  and  it  is  a  warning  of  worse  — 
Wait,  look  over  there." 

Michel,  whose  arm  Petit-Pierre  had  seized,  looked  in 
the  direction  to  which  she  pointed,  and  there,  about  a 
mile  distant  in  the  valley,  he  saw  three  or  four  camp-fires 
shining  in  the  darkness. 

"It  is  a  bivouac,"  said  Petit-Pierre.  "If  that  scoundrel 
suspects  the  truth  —  and  no  doubt  he  does — he  will  make 
for  the  camp  and  set  those  red-breeches  on  our  traces." 

"  Ah  !  do  you  think  that  knowing  I  am  with  you,  I,  his 
master,  he  would  dare  —  " 

"I  must  suppose  everything,  Monsieur  Michel,  and  I 
must  risk  nothing." 

"You  are  right;  we  must  leave  nothing  to  chance." 

"Had  n't  we  better  leave  the  beaten  path  ?  " 

"I  was  thinking  of  that." 

"  How  much  time  will  it  take  to  go  on  foot  to  the  place 
where  the  marquis  is  awaiting  us  ?  " 

"An  hour,  at  least;  and  we  have  no  time  to  lose.  But 
what  shall  we  do  with  the  horse  ?  He  can't  climb  the 
banks  as  we  must." 

"Throw  the  bridle  on  his  neck.  He'll  go  back  to  his 
stable;  ami  if  our  friends  meet  the  animal  on  the  way, 
they  '11  know  some  accident  has  happened  and  will  come 
in  search  of  us.     Hush  !  hush  !  " 

"What  is  it?" 

"Don't  you  hear  something  ?  "  asked  Petit-Pierre. 

"Yes;  horses'  feet  in  the  direction  of  that  bivouac." 

"You  see  it  was  not  without  a  motive  that  your  farmer 
cut  our  saddle-girths.     Let  us  be  off,  my  poor  baron." 

"But  if  we  leave  the  horse  here  those  who  search  for  us 
will  know  the  riders  are  not  far  off." 

"Stop  !  "  said  Petit-Pierre;  "I  have  an  idea,  an  Italian 


430  THE  LAST  VENDÉE. 

idea  !  —  the  races  of  the  barberi.  Yes,  that 's  the  very 
thing.     Do  as  I  do,   Monsieur  Michel." 

"Goon;  I  obey." 

Petit-Pierre  set  to  work.  With  her  delicate  hands,  and 
at  the  risk  of  lacerating  them,  she  broke  off  branches  of 
thorn  and  holly  from  the  neighboring  hedge.  Michel  did 
the  same,  and  they  presently  had  two  thick  and  prickly 
bundles  of  short  sticks. 

"  What 's  to  be  done  with  them  ?  "  asked  Michel. 

"  Tear  the  name  off  your  handkerchief  and  give  me  the 
rest." 

Michel  obeyed.  Petit-Pierre  tore  the  handkerchief  into 
two  strips  and  tied  up  the  bunches.  Then  she  fastened 
one  to  the  mane,  the  other  to  the  tail  of  the  horse.  The 
poor  animal,  feeling  the  thorns  like  spurs  upon  his  flesh, 
began  to  rear  and  plunge.  The  young  baron  now  began  to 
understand. 

"Take  off  his  bridle,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  "or  he  may 
break  his  neck;  and  let  him  go." 

The  horse  was  hardly  relieved  of  the  snaffle  that  held 
him  before  he  snorted,  shook  his  mane  and  tail  angrily, 
and  darted  away  like  a  tornado,  leaving  a  trail  of  sparks 
behind  him. 

"Bravo  !  "  cried  Petit-Pierre.  "Now,  pick  up  the  sad- 
dle and  bridle,  and  let  us  find  shelter  ourselves." 

They  jumped  the  hedge,  Michel  having  thrown  the 
saddle  and  bridle  before  him.  There  they  crouched  down 
and  listened.  The  gallop  of  the  horse  still  resounded  on 
the  stony  road. 

"  Do  you  hear  it  ?  "  said  the  baron,  satisfied. 

"Yes;  but  we  are  not  the  only  ones  who  are  listening 
to  it,  Monsieur  le  baron,"  said  Petit-Pierre.  "Hear  the 
echo." 


MAÎTRE    JACQUES    KEEPS    HIS    OATH.  431 


XLVI. 

MAÎTRE     JACQUES    PROCEEDS     TO    KEEP    THE    OATH     HE    MADE 
TO    AUBIN    COURTE-JOIE. 

The  sound  which  Baron  Michel  and  Petit-Pierre  now  heard 
in  the  direction  by  which  Courtin  had  left  them  changed 
presently  into  a  loud  noise  approaching  rapidly;  and  two 
minutes  later  a  dozen  chasseurs,  riding  at  a  gallop  in 
pursuit  of  the  trail,  or  rather  the  noise  made  by  the  run- 
ning horse,  which  was  snorting  and  neighing  as  it  ran, 
passed  like  a  flash,  not  ten  steps  from  Petit-Pierre  and  her 
companion,  who,  rising  slightly  after  the  horsemen  had 
passed,  watched  their  wild  rush  into  the  distance. 

"They  ride  well,"  said  Petit-Pierre;  "but  I  doubt  if 
they  catch  up  with  that  horse." 

"They  are  making  straight  for  the  place  where  our 
friends  are  awaiting  us,  and  I  think  the  marquis  is  in  just 
the  humor  to  put  a  stop  to  their  course." 

"  Then  it  is  battle  !  "  cried  Petit-Pierre.  "  Well,  water 
yesterday,  fire  to-day;  for  my  part,  I  prefer  the  latter." 

And  she  tried  to  hurry  Michel  in  the  direction  where 
the  fight  would  take  place. 

"No,  no,  no  !"  said  Michel,  resisting;  "I  entreat  you 
not  to  go  there." 

"Don't  you  wish  to  win  your  spurs  under  the  eyes  of 
your  lady,  baron  ?     She  is  there,  you  know." 

"I  think  she  is,"  said  the  young  man,  sadly.  "But 
troops  are  scattered  over  the  country  in  every  direction  ;  at 
the  first  shots  they  will  all  converge  toward  the  firing. 
We  may  fall  in  with  one  of  their  detachments,  and  if, 
unfortunately,  the  mission  with  which  I  am  charged  should 


432  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

end  disastrously  I  shall  never  dare  to  appear  again  before 
the  marquis  —  " 

"Say  before  his  daughter." 

"Well,  yes,  — before  his  daughter." 

"Then,  in  order  not  to  bring  trouble  into  your  love 
affairs  I  consent  to  obey  you." 

"  Oh,  thank  you  !  thank  you  !  "  cried  Michel,  seizing 
Petit-Pierre's  hand  vehemently.  Then  perceiving  the 
impropriety  of  his  action,  he  exclaimed,  stepping  back- 
ward,  "  Oh,  pardon  me  ;  pray,  pardon  me  !  " 

"Never  mind,"  said  Petit-Pierre;  "don't  think  of  it. 
Where  did  the  Marquis  de  Souday  intend  to  shelter  me  ?  " 

"In  a  farmhouse  of  mine." 

"  Not  that  of  your  man  Courtin,  I  hope  ?  " 

"No,  in  another,  perfectly  isolated,  hidden  in  the 
woods  beyond  Lege.  You  know  the  village  where  Tinguy 
lived  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  but  do  you  know  the  way  there  ?  " 

"Perfectly." 

"  I  distrust  that  adverb  in  France.  My  poor  Bonneville 
said  he  knew  the  way  perfectly,  but  he  lost  it."  Petit- 
Pierre  sighed  as  she  added,  in  a  lower  tone,  "Poor  Bonne- 
ville !  alas  !  it  may  have  been  that  very  mistake  that  led 
to  his  death." 

The  topic  brought  back  the  melancholy  thoughts  that 
filled  her  mind  as  she  left  the  cottage  where  the  catas- 
trophe that  cost  her  the  life  of  her  first  companion  had 
taken  place.  She  was  silent,  and  after  making  a  gesture 
of  consent,  she  followed  her  new  guide,  replying  only  by 
monos3*llables  to  the  few  remarks  which  Michel  addressed 
to  her. 

As  for  the  latter,  he  performed  his  new  functions  with 
more  ability  and  .success  than  might  have  been  expected  of 
him.  He  turned  to  the  left,  and  crossing  some  fields, 
reached  a  brook  where  he  had  often  fished  for  shrimps  in 
his  childhood.  This  brook  runs  through  the  valley  of  the 
Benaste  from  end  to  end,  rises  toward  the  south  and  falls 


MAÎTRE  JACQUES  KEEPS  HIS  OATH.        433 

again  toward  the  north,  where  it  joins  the  Boulogne  near 
Saint-Colombin.  Either  bank,  bordered  with  fields,  gave 
a  safe  and  easy  path  to  pedestrians.  Michel  took  to  the 
brook  itself,  and  followed  it  for  some  distance,  carrying 
Petit-Pierre  on  his  shoulders  as  poor  Bonneville  had  done. 

Presently,  leaving  the  brook  after  following  it  for  about 
a  kilometre,  he  bore  again  to  the  left,  crossed  the  brow  of  a 
hill,  and  showed  Petit-Pierre  the  dark  masses  of  the  forest 
of  Touvois,  which  were  visible  in  the  dim  light,  looming 
up  from  the  foot  of  the  hill  on  which  they  now  stood. 

*  Is  that  where  your  farmhouse  is  ?  "  asked  Petit-Pierre. 

"We  have  still  to  cross  the  forest,"  he  said;  "but  we 
shall  get  there  in  about  three  quarters  of  an  hour." 

"  You  are  not  afraid  of  losing  your  way  ?  " 

"No;  for  we  do  not  have  to  plunge  into  the  thicket.  In 
fact,  we  shall  not  enter  the  wood  at  all  till  we  reach  the 
road  from  Machecoul  to  Légé.  By  skirting  the  edge  of 
the  forest  to  the  eastward  we  must  strike  that  road  soon." 

"  And  then  ?  " 

"Then  all  we  have  to  do  is  to  follow  it." 

"Well,  well,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  cheerfully,  "I'll  give 
a  good  account  of  you,  my  young  guide;  and  faith,  it  shall 
not  be  Petit-Pierre's  fault  if  you  don't  obtain  the  reward 
you  covet  !  But  here  is  rather  a  well-beaten  path.  Is  n't 
this  the  one  you  are  looking  for  ?  " 

"I  can  easily  tell,"  replied  Michel,  "for  there  ought  to 
be  a  post  on  the  right  —  There  !  here  it  is  !  we  are  all 
right.  And  now,  Petit-Pierre,  I  can  promise  you  a  good 
night's  rest." 

"Ah  !  that  is  a  comfort,"  said  Petit -Pierre,  smiling; 
"for  I  don't  deny  that  the  terrible  emotions  of  the  day 
have  not  relieved  the  fatigues  of  last  night.  " 

The  words  were  hardly  out  of  her  lips  before  a  black 
outline  rose  from  the  other  side  of  the  ditch,  bounded 
into  the  road,  and  a  man  seized  Petit-Pierre  violently  by 
the  collar  of  the  peasant's  jacket  which  she  wore,  crying 
out  in  a  voice  of  thunder  :  — 
vol.  i.  — 28 


434  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Stop,  or  you  're  a  dead  man  !  " 

Michel  sprang  to  the  assistance  of  his  young  companion 
by  bringing  down  a  vigorous  blow  with  the  butt-end  of  his 
whip  on  her  assailant.  He  was  near  paying  dear  for  his 
intervention.  The  man,  without  letting  go  of  Petit-Pierre, 
whom  he  held  with  his  left  arm,  drew  a  pistol  from  his 
jacket  and  fired  at  the  young  baron.  Happily  for  the  latter, 
in  spite  of  Petit-Pierre's  feebleness  she  was  not  of  a  stuff 
to  keep  as  passive  as  her  captor  expected.  With  a  rapid 
gesture  she  struck  the  arm  that  fired  the  weapon,  and  the 
ball,  which  would  otherwise  have  gone  straight  to  Michel's 
breast,  only  wounded  him  in  the  shoulder.  He  returned 
to  the  charge,  and  their  assailant  was  just  pulling  a  second 
pistol  from  his  belt  when  two  other  men  sprang  from  the 
bushes  and  seized  Michel  from  behind. 

Then  the  first  assailant,  seeing  that  the  young  man  could 
interfere  no  longer,  contented  himself  by  saying  to  his 
companions  :  — 

"Secure  that  fellow  first;  and  then  come  and  rid  me  of 
this  one." 

"But,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  "by  what  right  do  you  stop  us 
in  this  way  ?  " 

"This  right,"  said  the  man,  striking  the  carbine,  which 
he  carried  on  his  shoulder.  "  If  you  want  to  know  why, 
you  will  find  out  presently.  Bind  that  man  securely,"  he 
said  to  his  men.  "As  for  this  one,"  he  added  contemptu- 
ously, "  it  is  n't  worth  while;  I  think  there  '11  be  no  trouble 
in  mastering  him." 

"But  I  wish  to  know  where  you  are  taking  us,"  insisted 
Petit-Pierre. 

"You  are  very  inquisitive,  my  young  friend,"  replied 
the  man. 

"But  —  " 

"  Damn  it  !  come  on,  and  you  '11  find  out.  You  shall 
see  with  your  own  eyes  where  you  are  going  in  a  very  few 
minutes." 

And  the  man,  taking  Petit-Pierre  by  the  arm,  dragged 


MAÎTRE   JACQUES   KEEPS   HIS   OATH.  435 

her  into  the  bushes,   while  Michel,  struggling  violently, 
was  pushed  by  the  two  assistants  in  the  same  direction. 

They  walked  thus  for  about  ten  minutes,  at  the  end  of 
which  time  they  reached  the  open  where,  as  we  know,  was 
the  burrow  of  Maître  Jacques  and  his  bandits.  For  it  was 
he,  bent  on  sacredly  keeping  his  oath  to  Aubin  Courte- 
Joie,  who  had  stopped  the  two  travellers  whom  luck  had 
sent  in  his  way;  and  it  was  his  pistol-shot  which,  as  we 
have  already  seen  at  the  close  of  a  preceding  chapter,  put 
the  whole  camp  of  the  refractories  on  the  qui  vive. 


END    OF   VOL  I. 


THE   LAST  VENDEE; 


OR, 


THE  SHE-WOLVES   OF  MACHECOUL 

VOLUME  II. 


THE  LAST  VENDEE; 


OR, 


THE   SHE-WOLVES    OF    MACHECOUL. 


I. 


IN    WHICH    IT    APPEARS     THAT    ALL    JEWS     ARE    NOT     FROM 
JERUSALEM,    NOR    ALL   TURKS    PROM   TUNIS. 

"  Hola  !  hey  !  my  rabbits  !  "  called  Maître  Jacques,  as  he 
entered  the  open. 

At  the  voice  of  their  leader  the  obedient  "  rabbits  " 
issued  from  the  underbrush  and  from  the  tufts  of  gorse 
and  brambles  beneath  which  they  had  ensconced  them- 
selves at  the  first  alarm,  and  came  running  into  the  open, 
where  they  eyed  the  two  prisoners,  as  well  as  the  darkness 
would  allow,  with  much  curiosity.  Then,  as  if  this  exami- 
nation did  not  suffice,  one  of  them  went  down  into  the 
burrow,  lighted  two  bits  of  pine,  and  jumping  back  put 
the  improvised  torches  under  the  nose  of  Petit-Pierre  and 
that  of  her  companion. 

Maître  Jacques  had  resumed  his  usual  seat  on  the  trunk 
of  a  tree,  and  was  peaceably  conversing  with  Aubin  Courte- 
Joie,  to  whom  he  related  the  incidents  of  the  capture  he 
had  made,  with  the  same  circumstantial  particularity  with 
which  a  villager  tells  his  wife  of  a  purchase  he  has  just 
concluded  at  a  market. 


10  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Michel,  who  was  naturally  somewhat  overcome  by  the 
affair  and  by  his  wound,  was  sitting,  or  rather  lying,  on 
the  grass.  Petit-Pierre,  standing  beside  him,  was  gazing, 
with  an  attention  not  exempt  from  disgust,  at  the  faces  of 
the  bandits;  which  was  easy  to  do,  because,  having  satis- 
fied their  curiosity,  they  had  gone  back  to  their  usual 
pursuits,  —  that  is  to  say,  to  their  psalm-singing,  their 
games,  their  sleep,  and  the  polishing  of  their  weapons. 
And  yet,  while  playing,  drinking,  singing,  and  cleansing 
their  guns,  carbines,  and  pistols,  they  never  lost  sight  for 
an  instant  of  the  two  prisoners  who,  by  way  of  precaution, 
were  placed  in  the  very  centre  of  the  open. 

It  was  then  that  Petit-Pierre,  withdrawing  her  eyes  from 
the  bandits,  noticed  for  the  first  time  that  her  companion 
was  wounded. 

"Oh,  good  God  !  "  she  exclaimed,  seeing  the  blood  which 
had  run  down  Michel's  arm  to  his  hand;  "you  are  shot  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  I  think  so,  Ma  —  mon  —  " 

"Oh  !  for  heaven's  sake,  say  Petit-Pierre,  and  more  than 
ever.     Do  you  suffer  much  pain  ?  " 

"No;  I  thought  I  received  a  blow  from  a  stick  on  the 
shoulder,  but  now  the  whole  arm  is  getting  numb." 

"Try  to  move  it." 

"Well,  in  any  case,  there  is  nothing  broken.     See  !  " 

And  he  moved  his  arm  with  comparative  ease. 

"Good  !  This  will  certainly  win  you  the  heart  you 
love,  and  if  your  noble  conduct  is  not  enough,  I  promise  to 
intervene  in  your  behalf;  and  I  have  good  reason  to  think 
my  intervention  will  be  effectual." 

"  How  kind  you  are,  Ma  —  Petit-Pierre  !  And  whatever 
you  order  me  to  do,  I  '11  do  it  after  such  a  promise;  even 
if  I  have  to  attack  a  battery  of  a  hundred  guns  single- 
handed,  I  '11  go,  head  down,  to  the  redoubt.  Ah,  if  you 
would  only  speak  to  the  Marquis  de  Souday  for  me,  I 
should  be  the  happiest  of  men  !  " 

"Don't  gesticulate  in  that  way;  you  will  prevent  the 
blood  from  stanching.     So  it  seems  it  is  the  marquis  you 


ALL  JEWS  ARE  NOT  FROM  JERUSALEM.        11 

are  particularly  afraid  of.  Well,  I  '11  speak  to  him,  your 
terrible  marquis,  on  the  word  of  —  of  Petit-Pierre.     But 

now,  as  they  have  left  us  alone  to  ourselves,  let  us  talk 
about  our  present  affairs.  Where  are  we  ?  —  and  who  are 
these  persons  ?  " 

"To  me,"  said  Michel,  "they  look  like  Chouans." 

"  Do  Chouans  stop  inoffensive  travellers  ?    Impossible  !  " 

"They  do,  though." 

"I  am  shocked." 

"  Well,  if  they  have  not  done  it  before,  they  have  done 
it  now,  apparently." 

"What  will  they  do  with  us  ?  " 

"That  we  shall  soon  know;  for  see,  they  are  beginning 
to  bestir  themselves, —  about  us,  no  doubt  !  " 

"  Goodness  !  "  exclaimed  Petit-Pierre  ;  "  how  odd  it  will 
be  if  we  are  in  danger  from  my  own  partisans  !  But 
hush  !  " 

Maître  Jacques,  after  conferring  for  some  time  with 
Aubin  Courte-Joie,  gave  the  order  to  bring  the  prisoners 
before  him. 

Petit-Pierre  advanced  confidently  toward  the  tree,  on 
which  the  master  of  the  burrow  held  his  assizes;  but 
Michel  who,  on  account  of  his  wound  and  his  bound  hands, 
found  some  difficulty  in  getting  on  his  legs,  took  more 
time  in  obeying  the  order.  Seeing  this,  Aubin  Courte- 
Joie  made  a  sign  to  Trigaud-Vermin,  who,  seizing  the  yourjg 
man  by  the  waist,  lifted  him  with  the  ease  another  man 
would  have  had  in  lifting  a  child  three  years  old,  and 
placed  him  before  Maître  Jacques,  taking  care  to  put  him 
in  precisely  the  same  attitude  from  which  he  had  taken  him, 
—  a  manœuvre  Trigaud-Vermin  accomplished  by  swinging 
forward  Michel's  lower  limbs  and  poking  him  in  the  back 
before  he  let  him  fall  at  full  length  on  the  ground. 

"  Stupid  brute  !  "  muttered  Michel,  who  had  lost  undei 
the  effect  of  pain  some  of  his  natural  timidity. 

"You  are  not  civil,"  said  Maître  Jacques;  "no,  I  repeat 
to  you,  Monsieur  le  Baron  Michel  de  la  Logerie,  you  are 


12  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

not  civil,  and  the  kindness  of  that  poor  fellow  deserved  a 
better  return.  But  come,  let 's  attend  to  our  little  busi- 
ness !  "  Casting  a  more  observing  look  at  the  young  man, 
he  added,  "I  am  not  mistaken;  you  are  M.  le  Baron 
Michel  de  la  Logerie,  are  you  not  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  replied  Michel,  laconically. 

"Very  good.  What  were  you  doing  on  the  road  to 
Lege,  in  the  middle  of  the  forest  of  Touvois  at  this  time 
of  night  ?  " 

"  I  might  answer  that  I  am  not  obliged  to  give  an  account 
of  my  actions  to  you,  and  that  the  highways  are  open  to 
everybody." 

"But  you  won't  answer  me  in  that  way,  Monsieur  le 
baron." 

"  Why  not  ?  " 

"Because,  with  due  respect  to  you,  it  would  be  folly, 
and  I  believe  you  have  too  much  sense  to  commit  it." 

"Very  good;  I  won't  discuss  the  point.  T  was  going  to 
my  farm  of  Banlœuvre,  which,  as  you  know,  is  at  the  far- 
ther end  of  the  forest  of  Touvois,  in  which  we  now  are." 

"  Well  done  ;  that 's  right,  Monsieur  le  baron.  Do  me 
the  honor  to  answer  always  in  that  way  and  we  shall  agree. 
Now,  how  is  it  that  the  Baron  de  la  Logerie,  who  has  so 
many  good  horses  in  his  stables,  so  many  fine  carriages  in 
his  coach-house,  should  be  travelling  on  foot  with  his 
friend,  like  a  simple  peasant,  —  like  us,  in  short  ?  " 

"We  had  a  horse,  but  he  got  away  in  an  accident  we 
met  with,  and  we  could  not  catch  him." 

"Well  done  again.  Now,  Monsieur  le  baron,  I  hope 
you  will  be  kind  enough  to  give  us  some  news." 

"I  ?" 

"Yes.  What  is  going  on  over  there,  Monsieur  le 
baron  ? " 

"  How  can  things  over  our  way  interest  you  ?  "  asked 
Michel,  who  not  being  quite  sure  to  which  party  the  man 
he  was  addressing  belonged,  hesitated  as  to  the  color  he 
ought  to  give  to  his  replies. 


ALL   JEWS   ARE   NOT   FROM   JERUSALEM.  13 

"Go  on,  Monsieur  le  baron,"  resumed  Maître  Jacques; 
*  never  mind  whether  what  you  have  to  say  is  useful  to  me 
or  not.  Come,  bethink  yourself.  Whom  did  you  meet  on 
the  way  ?  " 

Michel  looked  at  Petit-Pierre  with  embarrassment. 
Maître  Jacques  intercepted  the  look,  and  calling  up 
Trigaud-Vermin,  he  ordered  him  to  stand  between  the  two 
prisoners,  like  the  Wall  in  "Midsummer-Night's  Dream." 

"Well,"  continued  Michel,  "we  met  what  everybody 
meets  at  all  hours  and  on  every  road  for  the  last  three  days 
in  and  about  Machecoul,  — we  met  soldiers." 

"  Did  they  speak  to  you  ?  " 

"No." 

"  No  ?  Do  you  mean  to  say  they  let  you  pass  without 
a  word  ?  " 

"We  avoided  them." 

"  Bah  !  "  said  Maître  Jacques,  in  a  doubtful  tone. 

"Travelling  on  our  own  business  it  did  not  suit  us  to  be 
mixed  up  in  affairs  that  were  none  of  ours." 

"  Who  is  this  young  man  who  is  with  you  ?  " 

Petit-Pierre  hastened  to  answer  before  Michel  had  time 
to  do  so. 

"I  am  Monsieur  le  baron's  servant,"  she  said. 

"Then,  my  young  friend,"  said  Maître  Jacques,  replying 
to  Petit-Pierre,  "  allow  me  to  tell  you  that  you  are  a  very  bad 
servant.  In  fact,  peasant  as  I  am,  I  am  grieved  to  hear  a 
servant  answering  for  his  master,  especially  when  no  one 
spoke  to  him."  Turning  to  Michel,  he  continued,  "So 
this  lad  is  your  servant,  is  he  ?     Well,  he  is  a  pretty  boy." 

And  the  lord  of  the  burrow  looked  at  Petit-Pierre  with 
scrutinizing  attention,  while  one  of  his  men  threw  the  light 
of  a  torch  full  on  her  face  to  facilitate  the  examination. 

"Let  us  come  to  the  point,"  said  Michel;  "what  do  you 
want?  If  it  is  my  purse  I  sha'n't  prevent  you  from  hav- 
ing it.     Take  it;  but  let  us  go  about  our  business." 

"Oh,  fie!"  returned  Maître  Jacques;  "if  I  were  a  gen- 
tleman, like  you,  Monsieur  Michel,  I  would  ask  satisfaction 


14  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

for  such  an  insult.  Do  you  take  us  for  highwaymen? 
That 's  not  flattering.  I  would  willingly  tell  you  my  busi- 
ness, only,  I  fear  I  should  make  myself  disagreeable. 
Besides,  you  say  you  have  nothing  to  do  with  politics. 
Your  father,  nevertheless,  whom  I  knew  something  of  in 
the  olden  time,  did  meddle  with  politics,  and  did  n't  lose 
his  fortune  that  way  either.  I  must  admit,  therefore,  that 
I  expected  to  find  you  a  zealous  adherent  of  his  Majesty 
Louis-Philippe." 

"  Then  you  'd  have  been  very  much  mistaken,  my  good 
sir,"  broke  in  Petit-Pierre,  disrespectfully;  "Monsieur  le 
baron  is,  on  the  contrary,  a  zealous  partisan  of  his  Majesty 
Henri  V." 

"Indeed,  my  little  friend!"  cried  Maître  Jacques. 
Then,  turning  to  Michel,  "Come,  Monsieur  le  baron,"  he 
continued,  "be  frank;  is  what  your  companion  —  I  mean 
your  servant  —  says  the  truth  ?  " 

"The  exact  truth,"  answered  Michel. 

"Ah,  but  this  is  good  news  !  I,  who  thought  I  had  to 
do  with  those  horrid  curs  !  —  good  God  !  how  ashamed  I 
am  of  the  way  I  have  treated  you,  and  what  excuses  I 
ought  to  offer  !  Pray,  receive  them,  Monsieur  le  baron  ; 
and  take  your  share,  my  excellent  young  friend,  —  master 
and  servant,  please  to  accept  them  together.  I  'm  not  too 
proud  to  beg  your  pardon." 

"Well,  then,"  said  Michel,  whose  displeasure  was  not 
lessened  by  Maître  Jacques's  sarcastic  politeness,  "you 
have  a  very  easy  way  of  testifying  your  regret,  and  that  is 
by  letting  us  go  our  way." 

"  Oh,  no  !  "  cried  Maître  Jacques. 

"  Why  not  ?  " 

"  No,  no,  no  !  I  cannot  consent  to  let  you  leave  us  in 
that  way.  P>esides,  two  such  partisans  of  legitimacy  as 
you  and  T,  Monsieur  le  Baron  Michel,  have  a  great  deal  to 
say  to  each  other  about  the  grand  uprising  that  is  now  tak- 
ing place.     Don't  you  think  so,  Monsieur  le  baron  ?  " 

"It  may  be  so;  but  the  interests  of  that  cause  require 


ALL  JEWS  ARE  NOT  FROM  JERUSALEM.        15 

that  I  and  my  servant  should  immediately  reach  the  safety 
of  my  farm  at  Banlueuvre." 

"  Monsieur  le  baron,  there  is  no  spot  in  all  this  region 
as  safe  as  the  one  where  you  now  are  in  the  midst  of  us. 
I  cannot  allow  you  to  leave  us  without  giving  you  some 
proof  of  the  really  touching  interest  I  feel  for  you." 

"Hum  !  "  muttered  Petit-Pierre,  under  her  breath; 
"things  are  going  very  wrong." 

"Go  on,"  said  Michel. 

"  You  are  devoted  to  Henri  V.  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Very  devoted  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Supremely  devoted  ?  " 

"I  have  told  you  so." 

"Yes,  you  have  told  me  so,  and  I  don't  doubt  your  word. 
Well,  I  '11  provide  }rou  with  a  way  to  manifest  that  devotion 
in  a  dazzling  manner." 

"Do  so." 

"You  see  my  men,"  continued  Maître  Jacques,  pointing 
to  his  troop, —  "some  forty  scamps  who  look  more  like 
Callot's  bandits  than  the  honest  peasants  that  they  are. 
They  don't  ask  anything  better  than  to  be  killed  for  our 
3roung  king  and  his  heroic  mother  ;  only,  they  lack  every- 
thing needful  to  attain  that  end,  —  shoes  to  march  in,  arms 
to  fight  with,  garments  to  wear,  money  to  lessen  the  hard- 
ships of  the  bivouac.  You  do  not,  I  presume.  Monsieur  le 
baron,  desire  that  these  faithful  servants,  accomplishing 
what  you  yourself  regard  as  a  sacred  duty,  should  be 
exposed  to  cold,  hunger,  and  other  privations  in  all 
weathers  ?  " 

"But,"  said  Michel,  "how  the  devil  am  I  to  clothe 
and  arm  your  men  ?  Have  I  a  base  of  supplies  at  com- 
mand ?  " 

"Ah,  Monsieur  le  baron,"  resumed  Maître  «Jacques, 
"don't  think  I  know  so  little  of  good  manners  as  to  dream 
of  burdening  you  with  the  annoyance  of  such  details.     No, 


16  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

indeed  !  But  I  've  a  faithful  follower  here  "  (and  he 
pointed  to  Aubin  Courte-Joie)  "who  will  spare  you  all 
trouble.  Give  him  the  money,  and  he  will  lay  it  out  to 
the  best  advantage,  all  the  while  saving  your  purse." 

"If  that 's  all,"  said  Michel,  with  the  readiness  of  youth 
and  the  enthusiasm  of  his  dawning  opinions,  "  I  'm  very 
willing.     How  much  do  you  want  ?  " 

"Come,  that 's  good  !  "  exclaimed  Maître  Jacques,  not  a 
little  amazed  at  this  readiness.  "Well,  do  you  think  it 
would  be  pushing  things  too  far  to  ask  you  for  five  hundred 
francs  for  each  man  ?  I  should  like  them  to  have,  besides 
the  uniform,  —  green,  you  know,  like  the  chasseurs  of 
Monsieur  de  Charette,  —  a  knapsack  comfortably  supplied. 
Five  hundred  francs,  that 's  about  half  the  price  Philippe 
charges  France  for  every  man  she  gives  him;  and  each  of 
my  men  is  worth  any  two  of  his.  You  see,  therefore,  that 
I  am  reasonable." 

"  Say  at  once  the  sum  you  want,  and  let  us  make  an  end 
of  this  business  at  once." 

"  Well,  I  have  forty  men,  including  those  now  absent  on 
leave,  but  who  are  bound  to  join  the  standard  at  the  first 
call.  That  makes  just  twenty  thousand  francs,  —  a  mere 
nothing  for  a  rich  man  like  you,  Monsieur  le  baron." 

"  So  be  it.  You  shall  have  your  twenty  thousand  francs 
in  two  days,"  said  Michel,  endeavoring  to  rise;  "I  give 
you  my  word." 

"  Oh,  no,  no  ;  I  wish  to  spare  you  all  trouble,  Monsieur 
le  baron.  You  have  a  friend  in  this  region,  a  notary,  who 
will  advance  to  you  that  sum  if  you  write  him  a  pressing 
little  note,  a  polite  little  note,  which  one  of  my  men  shall 
take  at  once." 

"Very  well;  give  me  something  to  write  with,  and 
unbind  my  hands." 

"My  friend  Courte- Joie  here  has  pens,  ink,  and  paper." 

Maître  Courte-Joie  had  already  begun  to  pull  an  ink- 
stand from  his  pocket.     But  Petit-Pierre  stepped  forward. 

"One  moment,  Monsieur  Michel,"  she  said,  in  a  resolute 


ALL  JEWS  AKE  NOT  FROM  JERUSALEM.        17 

tone.  "  And  you,  Maître  Courte-Joie,  as  I  hear  you  called, 
put  up  your  implements.     This  shall  not  be  done." 

"  Upon  my  word  !  "  ejaculated  Maître  Jacques  ;  "  and 
pray,   why  not,   servant,  —  as  you  call  yourself  ?  " 

"Because  such  proceedings,  monsieur,  are  those  of  ban- 
dits in  Calabria  and  Estramadura,  and  cannot  be  tolerated 
among  men  who  claim  to  be  soldiers  of  King  Henri  V. 
Your  demand  is  an  actual  extortion,  which  I  will  not 
permit." 

"  You,  my  young  friend  ?  " 

"Yes,  I." 

"If  I  considered  you  as  being  really  what  you  pretend 
to  be,  I  should  treat  you  as  an  impertinent  lackey;  but  it 
strikes  me  that  you  have  a  right  to  the  respect  we  owe  to 
a  woman,  and  I  shall  not  compromise  my  reputation  for 
gallantry  by  handling  you  roughly.  I  therefore  confine 
myself,  for  the  present,  to  telling  you  to  mind  your  own 
business  and  not  meddle  with  what  does  n't  concern  you." 

"On  the  contrary,  monsieur,  this  concerns  me  very 
closely,"  returned  Petit-Pierre,  with  dignity.  "It  is  of 
the  utmost  consequence  to  me  that  no  one  shall  make  use 
of  the  name  of  Henri  V.  to  cover  acts  of  brigandage." 

"  You  take  an  extraordinary  interest  in  the  affairs  of  his 
Majesty,  my  young  friend.  Will  you  be  good  enough  to 
tell  me  why  ?  " 

"Send  away  your  men,  and  I  will  tell  you,  monsieur." 

"Off  with  you  to  a  little  distance,  my  lads  !  "  he  said. 
"It  isn't  necessary,"  he  continued,  as  the  men  obeyed 
him,  "  as  I  have  no  secrets  from  those  worthy  fellows  ;  but 
I  'm  willing  to  humor  you,  as  you  see.  Come,  now  we  are 
alone,  speak  out." 

"Monsieur,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  going  a  step  nearer  to 
Maître  Jacques,  "I  order  you  to  set  that  young  man  at 
liberty.  I  require  you  to  give  us  an  escort  instantly  to 
the  place  where  we  are  going,  and  I  also  wish  you  to  send 
in  search  of  the  friends  we  are  expecting." 

"  You  require  ?  —  you  order  ?     Ah,  ça  !  my  little  turtle- 

TOL.  II.  —  2 


18  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

dove,  you  talk  like  the  king  upon  his  throne.  If  I  refuse, 
what  then  ?  " 

"  If  you  refuse  I  will  have  you  shot  within  twenty-four 
hours." 

"  Upon  my  word  !  one  would  think  you  were  the  regent 
herself.  " 

"I  am  the  regent  herself,  monsieur." 

Maître  Jacques  burst  into  a  roar  of  convulsive  laughter. 
His  men,  hearing  his  shouts,  came  up  to  have  their  share 
in  the  hilarity. 

"Ouf  !  "  he  cried,  seeing  them  about  him;  "here  's  fun  ! 
You  were  amazed  enough  just  now,  my  lads,  were  n't  you  ? 

—  to  hear  a  Baron  de  la  Logerie,  son  of  that  Michel  you 
wot  of,  declare  that  Henri  V.  had  no  better  friend  than  he. 
That  was  queer  enough  ;  but  this  —  oh  !  this  is  queerer 
still,  and  even  more  incredible.  Here  's  something  that 
goes  beyond  the  most  galloping  imagination.  Look  at  this 
little  peasant.  You  may  have  taken  him  for  anything  you 
like  ;  but  I  've  supposed  him  to  be  nothing  else  than  the 
mistress  of  Monsieur  le  baron.  Well,  well,  my  rabbits, 
we  are  all  mistaken, — you're  mistaken;  I'm  mistaken! 
This  young  man  whom  you  see  before  you  is  neither  more 
nor  less  than  the  mother  of  our  king  !  " 

A  growl  of  ironical  incredulity  ran  through  the  crowd. 

"I  swear  to  you,"  cried  Michel,  "it  is  true." 

"Fine  testimony,  faith  !  "  retorted  Maître  Jacques. 

"  I  assure  you  —  "  began  Petit-Pierre. 

"No,  no,"  interrupted  Maître  Jacques;  "I  assure  you 
that  if  within  ten  minutes  —  which  I  grant  to  your  squire 
for  reflection,  my  wandering  dame  —  he  does  n't  do  as 
agreed  upon,  I  '11  send  him  to  keep  company  with  the 
acorns  over  his  head.     He  may  choose,  but  choose  quick, 

—  the  money  or  the  rope.  If  I  don't  have  the  one,  he  '11 
have  the  other,  that 's  all  !  " 

"But this  is  infamous  !  "  cried  Petit-Pierre,  beside  herself. 
"  Seize  her  !  "  said  Maître  Jacques. 
Four  men  advanced  to  execute  the  order. 


ALL  JEWS  ARE  NOT  FROM  JERUSALEM.        19 

"Let  no  one  dare  to  lay  a  hand  on  me!"  said  Petit- 
Pierre.  Then,  as  Trigaud-Vermin,  callous  to  the  majesty 
of  her  voice  and  gesture,  still  advanced,  "What!"  she 
cried,  recoiling  from  the  touch  of  that  brutal  hand,  and 
snatching  from  her  head  both  hat  and  wig,  "Is  there  no 
man  among  those  bandits  who  is  soldier  enough  to  recog- 
nize me  ?  What  !  Will  God  abandon  me  now  to  the  mercy 
of  such  brigands  ?  " 

"  No  !  "  said  a  voice  behind  Maître  Jacques  ;  "  and  I  tell 
this  man  his  conduct  is  unworthy  of  one  who  wears  a  cock- 
ade that  is  white  because  it  is  spotless." 

Maître  Jacques  turned  like  lightning  and  aimed  a  pistol 
at  the  new-comer.  All  the  brigands  seized  their  weapons, 
and  it  was  literally  under  an  arch  of  iron  that  Bertha  — 
for  it  was  she  —  advanced  iuto  the  circle  that  surrounded 
the  prisoners. 

"The  she-wolf!"  muttered  some  of  Maître  Jacques's 
men,   who  knew  Mademoiselle  de  Souday. 

"What  are  you  here  for  ?  "  cried  the  master  of  the  band. 
"Don't  you  know  that  I  refuse  to  recognize  the  authority 
your  father  arrogates  to  himself  over  my  troop,  and  that  I 
positively  decline  to  be  a  part  of  his  division  ?  " 

"Silence,  fool!"  said  Bertha.  Then,  going  straight  to 
Petit-Pierre,  and  kneeling  on  one  knee  before  her,  "  I  ask 
pardon,"  she  said,  "for  these  men  who  have  insulted  and 
threatened  you,  —  you  who  have  so  many  claims  to  their 
respect." 

"Ah,  faith,"  cried  Petit-Pierre,  gayly,  "you  have  come 
just  in  time  !  The  situation  was  getting  critical  ;  and 
here  's  a  poor  lad  who  will  owe  you  his  life,  for  these 
worthy  people  were  actually  talking  of  hanging  him  and 
of  sending  me  to  keep  him  company." 

"  Good  heavens,  yes  !  "  said  Michel,  whom  Aubin  Courte- 
Joie,  seeing  how  matters  stood,  had  hastened  to  unbind. 

"And  the  worst  of  it  was,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  laughing 
and  nodding  at  Michel,  "that  the  young  man  deserved  to 
live  for  the  favor  of  a  good  royalist  like  yourself." 


20  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

Bertha  smiled  and  dropped  her  eyes. 

"So,"  continued  Petit-Pierre,  "it  is  you  who  will  have 
to  pay  my  debts  toward  him;  and  I  hope  you  will  not 
object  to  my  keeping  a  promise  I  have  made  him  to  speak 
to  your  father  in  his  behalf." 

Bertha  bent  low  to  take  the  hand  of  Petit-Pierre  and 
kiss  it,  —  a  movement  which  concealed  the  rush  of  color  to 
her  cheeks. 

Maître  Jacques,  mortified  and  ashamed  of  his  mistake, 
now  approached  and  stammered  a  few  excuses.  In  spite 
of  her  repulsion  for  the  man's  brutality,  Petit-Pierre  knew 
it  would  be  impolitic  to  do  more  than  show  a  certain 
amount  of  resentment. 

"Your  intentions  may  have  been  excellent,  monsieur," 
she  said,  "but  your  methods  are  deplorable,  and  tend  to 
nothing  less  than  making  highwaymen  of  our  supporters, 
like  the  Company  of  Jehu  in  the  old  war  ;  and  I  hope  you 
will  abstain  from  such  proceedings  in  future." 

Then,  turning  away,  as  if  such  persons  no  longer  existed 
for  her,  she  said  to  Bertha,  "Now  tell  me  how  you  hap- 
pened to  come  here  just  at  the  right  moment." 

"Your  horse  smelt  his  stable-mates,"  replied  the  young 
girl  ;  "  we  caught  him,  and  then  turned  aside,  for  we  heard 
the  chasseurs  coming  up.  Seeing  the  two  bundles  of 
thorns  tied  to  the  poor  beast,  we  thought  that  you  wanted 
to  be  rid  of  the  animal  in  order  to  mask  your  escape,  and 
we  all  dispersed  in  diiferent  directions  to  find  you,  giving 
ourselves  rendezvous  at  Banlœuvre.  I  came  through  the 
forest;  the  lights  attracted  my  attention,  then  the  voices. 
I  left  my  horse  at  some  distance,  for  fear  he  might  betray 
me;  you  know  the  rest,  Madame." 

"Very  good,"  said  Petit-Pierre;  "and  now  if  monsieur 
will  be  good  enough  to  give  us  a  guide  to  Banlœuvre, 
Bertha,  let  us  start;  for,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  am  half- 
dead  with  fatigue." 

"I  will  guide  you  myself,  Madame,"  said  Maître 
Jacques,  respectfully. 


ALL   JEWS   AKE   NOT   FROM   JERUSALEM.  21 

Petit-Pierre  bowed  her  head  in  assent;  and  Maître 
«Jacques  busied  himself  eagerly  in  his  arrangements.  Ten 
men  marched  in  advance  to  see  that  the  road  was  clear, 
while  he  himself  with  ten  others  escorted  Petit-Pierre, 
who  was  mounted  on  Bertha's  horse. 

Two  hours  later,  as  Petit-Pierre,  Bertha,  and  Michel 
were  finishing  their  supper,  the  Marquis  de  Souday  and 
Mary  arrived,  the  former  testifying  the  utmost  joy  at  find- 
ing the  person  whom  he  called  his  "young  friend"  in 
safety.  We  must  admit  that  the  old  gentleman's  joy,  sin- 
cere and  genuine  as  it  was,  was  expressed  in  the  stiff, 
ceremonious  sentences  of  the  old  school. 

In  the  course  of  the  evening  Petit-Pierre  had  a  long  con- 
ference with  the  marquis  in  a  corner  of  the  large  hall, 
which  Bertha  and  Michel  watched  with  deep  interest;  which 
was  still  further  deepened  when,  on  the  sudden  entrance 
of  Jean  Oullier,  the  marquis  rose,  came  up  to  the  young 
people,  and  taking  Bertha's  hand  in  his,  said  to  Michel: 

"Monsieur  Petit-Pierre  informs  me  that  you  aspire  to 
the  hand  of  my  daughter  Bertha.  I  may  have  had  other 
ideas  for  her  establishment,  but  in  consequence  of  these 
gracious  commands  I  can  only  assure  you,  monsieur,  that 
after  the  campaign  is  over  my  daughter  shall  be  your 
wife." 

A  thunderbolt  falling  at  Michel's  feet  would  not  have 
stunned  him  more.  While  the  marquis  ceremoniously  pre- 
pared to  place  Bertha's  hand  in  his  he  turned  to  Mary,  as 
if  to  implore  her  intervention  ;  but  her  low  voice  murmured 
in  his  ears  the  terrible  words,  "I  do  not  love  you." 

Overwhelmed  with  grief,  bewildered  and  surprised, 
Michel  mechanically  took  the  hand  the  marquis  presented 
to  him. 


22  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


II. 

MAÎTRE    MARC. 

The  day  on  which  all  these  events  —  namely,  those  in  the 
house  of  the  Widow  Picaut,  in  the  château  de  Souday,  the 
forest  of  Touvois,  and  the  farmhouse  of  Banlœuvre  —  took 
place,  the  door  of  a  house,  No.  19  rue  du  Château,  at 
Nantes,  opened  about  five  in  the  afternoon  to  give  exit  to 
two  individuals,  in  one  of  whom  we  may  recognize  the  civil 
commissioner  Pascal,  whose  acquaintance  we  have  already 
made  at  the  château  de  Souday,  and  who,  after  leaving  it, 
as  we  related,  with  the  Duchesse  de  Berry,  poor  Bonne- 
ville, and  the  other  Vendéan  leaders,  had  returned  without 
difficulty  to  his  official  and  private  residence  at  Nantes. 

The  other,  and  this  is  the  one  with  whom  we  are  for  the 
present  concerned,  was  a  man  about  forty  years  of  age, 
with  a  keen,  intelligent,  and  penetrating  eye,  a  curved 
nose,  white  teeth,  thick  and  sensual  lips,  like  those  which 
commonly  belong  to  imaginative  persons;  his  black  coat 
and  white  cravat  and  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of  honor  indi- 
cated, so  far  as  one  might  judge  by  appearances,  a  man 
belonging  to  the  magistracy.  He  was,  in  truth,  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  members  of  the  Paris  bar,  who  had 
arrived  at  Nantes  the  evening  before  and  gone  straight  to 
the  house  of  his  associate,  the  civil  commissioner.  In  the 
royalist  vocabulary  he  bore  the  name  of  Marc,  — one  of  the 
several  names  of  Cicero. 

When  he  reached  the  street  door,  conducted,  as  we  have 
said,  by  the  civil  commissioner,  he  found  a  cabriolet  await- 
ing him.  The  two  men  shook  hands  affectionately,  and 
the  Parisian  lawyer  got  into  the  vehicle,  while  the  driver, 


MAÎTRE    MARC.  23 

leaning  over  to  the  civil  commissioner,  asked  him,  as  if 
aware  that  the  traveller  was  ignorant  on  the  subject:  — 

"  Where  am  I  to  take  the  gentleman  ?  " 

"  Do  you  see  that  peasant  at  the  farther  end  of  the  street 
on  a  dapple-gray  horse  ?  "  asked  the  civil  commissioner. 

"Yes." 

"Then  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  follow  him." 

This  information  was  hardly  given  before  the  man  on 
the  gray  horse,  as  though  he  had  overheard  the  words  of 
the  legitimist  agent,  started,  went  down  the  rue  du 
Château,  and  turned  to  the  right,  so  as  to  keep  along  by 
the  bank  of  the  river,  which  flowed  to  his  left.  The 
coachman  whipped  up  his  horse,  and  the  squeaking  vehi- 
cle on  which  we  have  bestowed  the  unambitious  name  of 
"cabriolet,'-'  began  to  rattle  over  the  uneven  pavement  of 
the  capital  of  the  Loire-Inférieure,  following,  as  best  it 
could,  the  mysterious  guide  before  it. 

Just  as  it  reached  the  corner  of  the  rue  du  Château  and 
turned  in  the  direction  indicated,  the  traveller  caught  sight 
of  the  rider,  who,  without  even  glancing  behind  him,  began 
to  cross  the  Loire,  by  the  pont  Rousseau,  which  leads  to 
the  high-road  of  Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu.  Once  on 
the  road  the  peasant  put  his  horse  to  a  trot,  but  a  slow 
trot,  such  as  the  cabriolet  could  easily  follow.  The  rider, 
however,  never  turned  his  head,  and  seemed  not  only  quite 
indifferent  as  to  what  might  be  happening  behind  him,  bat 
also  so  ignorant  of  the  mission  he  himself  was  performing 
that  the  traveller  began  to  fancy  himself  the  victim  of  a 
hoax. 

As  for  the  coachman,  not  being  trusted  with  the  secrets 
of  the  affair,  he  could  give  no  information  capable  of 
quieting  the  uneasiness  of  Maître  Marc.  Having  asked  of 
the  civil  commissioner,  "Where  am  I  to  go  ?"  and  being 
told,  "Follow  the  man  on  the  dapple-gray  horse,"  he  fol- 
lowed the  man  on  the  dapple-gray  horse,  seeming  no  more 
concerned  about  his  guide  than  his  guide  was  concerned 
about  him 


24  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

They  reached  Saint -Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu  in  about  two 
hours  and  just  at  dusk.  The  man  on  the  gray  horse 
stopped  at  the  inn  of  the  Cygne  de  la  Croix,  got  off  his 
horse,  gave  the  animal  to  the  hostler,  and  entered  the  inn. 
The  traveller  in  the  cabriolet  arrived  five  minutes  later 
and  entered  the  same  inn.  As  he  crossed  the  kitchen 
the  rider  met  him,  and  without  appearing  to  take  notice  of 
him,  slipped  a  little  paper  into  his  hand. 

The  traveller  entered  the  common  room,  which  happened 
at  the  moment  to  be  empty  ;  there  he  called  for  a  light  and 
a  bottle  of  wine.  They  brought  him  what  he  asked  for. 
He  did  not  touch  the  bottle,  but  he  opened  the  note,  which 
contained  these  words  :  — 

"  I  will  wait  for  you  ou  the  high-road  to  Lege  ;  follow  me,  but 
do  not  attempt  to  join  me  or  speak  to  me.  The  coachman  will 
stay  at  the  inn  with  the  cabriolet." 

The  traveller  burned  the  note,  poured  himself  out  a  glass 
of  wine,  with  which  he  merely  wet  his  lips,  told  the  coach- 
man to  stay  where  he  was  and  expect  him  on  the  following 
evening,  and  left  the  inn  on  foot,  without  attracting  the 
innkeeper's  attention,  or  at  any  rate,  without  the  inn- 
keeper's attention  seeming  to  be  attracted  to  him. 

At  the  end  of  the  village  he  saw  his  man,  who  was  cut- 
ting a  cane  from  a  hawthorn  hedge.  The  cane  being  cut, 
the  peasant  continued  his  way,  stripping  the  twigs  off  the 
stick  as  he  walked  along.  Maître  Marc  followed  him  for 
a  mile  and  a  half,  or  thereabout. 

By  this  time  it  was  quite  dark,  and  the  peasant  entered 
an  isolated  house  standing  on  the  right  of  the  road.  The 
traveller  hastened  on  and  went  in  almost  at  the  same 
moment  as  his  guide.  No  one  was  there  when  he  reached 
the  threshold  except  a  woman  in  the  room  that  looked  out 
on  the  high-road.  The  peasant  was  standing  before  her, 
apparently  awaiting  the  traveller.  As  soon  as  the  latter 
apppeared  the  peasant  said  to  the  woman  :  — 

"This  is  the  gentleman  to  be  guided." 


MAÎTRE    MARC.  25 

Then,  having  said  these  words,  he  went  out,  not  giving 
time  to  the  traveller  he  had  conducted  to  reward  him  with 
either  thanks  or  money.  When  the  traveller,  who  fol- 
lowed the  man  with  his  eyes,  turned  his  astonished  gaze 
on  the  mistress  of  the  house,  she  merely  signed  to  him  to 
sit  down,  and  then  without  taking  further  notice  of  his 
presence,  and  without  addressing  him  a  single  word,  she 
went  on  with  her  household  avocations. 

A  silence  of  half  an  hour  ensued,  and  the  traveller  was 
beginning  to  get  impatient,  when  the  master  of  the  house 
returned  home.  Without  showing  any  sign  of  surprise  or 
curiosity, he  bowed  to  his  guest;  but  he  looked  at  his  wife, 
who  repeated,  verbatim,  the  words  of  the  peasant:  "This 
is  the  gentleman  to  be  guided." 

The  master  of  the  house  then  gave  the  stranger  one  of 
those  uneasy,  shrewd,  and  rapid  glances,  which  belong 
exclusively  to  the  Vendéan  peasantry.  Then,  almost 
immediately,  his  face  resumed  its  habitual  expression, 
which  was  one  of  mingled  good-humor  and  simplicity,  as 
he  approached  his  guest,  cap  in  hand. 

"  Monsieur  wishes  to  travel  through  this  region  ?  "  he 
said. 

"Yes,  my  friend,"  replied  Maître  Marc;  "I  am  desirous 
of  going  farther." 

"  Monsieur  has  his  papers,  no  doubt  ?  " 

"Of  course." 

"In  order  ?" 

"They  cannot  be  more  so." 

"  Under  his  war  name,  or  his  real  name  ?  " 

"Under  my  real  name." 

"I  am  obliged,  in  order  that  I  make  no  mistake,  to  ask 
monsieur  to  show  me  those  papers." 

"Is  it  absolutely  necessary  ?  " 

"Yes;  because  until  I  have  seen  them  I  cannot  tell 
monsieur  whether  he  will  be  absolutely  safe  in  travelling 
in  these  parts." 

The  traveller  drew  out  his  passport,  which  bore  date 
the  28th  of  February. 


26  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

"Here  they  are,"  he  said. 

The  peasant  took  the  papers,  east  his  eyes  over  them  to 
see  if  the  description  tallied  with  the  individual  before 
him,  refolded  the  papers,  and  returned  them,  saying:  — 

"It  is  all  right.  Monsieur  can  go  everywhere  with 
those  papers." 

"  And  will  you  find  some  one  to  guide  me  ?  " 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

"I  wish  to  start  as  soon  as  possible." 

"I  will  saddle  the  horses  at  once." 

The  master  of  the  house  went  out.  In  ten  minutes  he 
returned. 

"The  horses  are  ready,"  he  said. 

"And  the  guide  ?" 

"He  is  waiting." 

The  traveller  went  out  and  found  a  farm-hand  already 
in  his  saddle,  holding  another  horse  by  the  bridle.  Maître 
Marc  perceived  that  the  led  horse  was  intended  for  his 
riding,  the  farm-hand  for  his  guide.  In  fact,  he  had 
scarcely  put  his  foot  in  the  stirrup  before  his  new  con- 
ductor started,  not  less  silently  than  his  predecessor.  It 
was  nine  o'clock,  and  the  night  was  dark. 


TRAVELLING   IN   THE   LOWER   LOIRE.  27 


III. 


HOW     PERSONS     TRAVELLED     IN     THE     DEPARTMENT     OF     THE 
LOWER    LOIRE    IN    MAY,    1832. 

After  riding  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  during  which  time 
not  a  word  was  exchanged  between  the  traveller  and  his 
guide,  they  reached  the  gate  of  one  of  those  buildings 
peculiar  to  that  region,  which  are  something  between  a 
farmhouse  and  a  château.  The  guide  stopped,  and  made  a 
sign  to  the  traveller  to  do  likewise.  Then  he  dismounted 
and  rapped  at  the  door.     A  servant  opened  it. 

"Here  is  a  gentleman  who  wishes  to  speak  to  monsieur," 
said  the  farm-hand. 

"It  is  impossible,"  replied  the  servant.  "Monsieur  has 
gone  to  bed." 

"Already  !  "  exclaimed  the  traveller. 

The  servant  came  closer. 

"Monsieur  spent  last  night  at  a  rendezvous,  and  has 
been  nearly  all  day  on  horseback,"  he  said. 

"ISO  matter,"  said  the  guide.  "This  gentleman  must 
see  him  ;  he  comes  from  Monsieur  Pascal,  and  is  going  to 
join  Petit-Pierre." 

"In  that  case  it  is  different,"  said  the  servant.  "I  will 
wake  monsieur." 

"Ask  him,"  said  the  traveller,  "if  he  can  give  me  a  safe 
guide;  a  guide  is  all  I  want." 

"  I  do  not  think  monsieur  would  do  that,"  said  the  servant. 

"  Why  not  ?  " 

"Because  he  will  wish  to  guide  monsieur  himself,"  said 
the  man. 

He  re-entered  the  house.     In  five  minutes  he  returned. 


28  THE   LA.ST  VENDÉE. 

"Monsieur  wishes  to  know  if  monsieur  will  take  any- 
thing, or  whether  he  prefers  to  continue  his  journey 
without  delay." 

"  I  dined  at  Nantes  and  need  nothing.  I  prefer  to  go 
on  immediately." 

The  servant  again  disappeared.  A  few  moments  later 
a  young  man  came  out.  This  time  it  was  not  the  servant, 
but  the  master. 

"Under  any  other  circumstances,  monsieur,"  he  said, 
"I  should  insist  on  your  doing  me  the  honor  to  rest  a 
while  under  my  roof;  but  you  are  no  doubt  the  person 
whom  Petit-Pierre  expects  from  Paris  ?  " 

"I  am,  monsieur." 

"  Monsieur  Marc,  then  ?  " 

"Yes,  Monsieur  Marc." 

"In  that  case,  let  us  not  lose  a  moment;  you  are  expected 
with  the  utmost  impatience."  Turning  to  the  farm-hand, 
he  said,  "  Is  your  horse  fresh  ?  " 

"He  has  only  done  five  miles  to-day." 

"In  that  case  I  '11  take  him;  my  horses  are  all  knocked 
up.  Stay  here  and  drink  a  bottle  of  wine  with  Louis. 
I  '11  be  back  in  two  hours.  Louis,  take  care  of  your  com- 
rade." Then  turning  to  the  traveller,  he  added,  "Are  you 
ready,  monsieur  ?  " 

At  an  affirmative  sign  from  the  latter  they  started. 
After  a  dead  silence  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour  a  cry  sounded 
about  a  hundred  steps  before  them.  Monsieur  Marc 
started  and  asked  what  it  was. 

"It  came  from  our  scout,"  said  the  Vendéan  leader. 
"  He  asks  in  his  fashion  if  the  road  is  clear.  Listen,  and 
you  will  hear  the  answer." 

He  stopped  his  horse  and  signed  to  Monsieur  Marc  to 
do  the  same.  Almost  immediately  a  second  cry  was  heard 
coming  from  a  much  greater  distance.  It  seemed  the  echo 
of  the  first,  so  exactly  alike  were  the  two  sounds. 

"  We  can  safely  go  on  ;  the  road  is  clear,  "  said  the 
Vendéan  leader. 


TRAVELLING   IN    THE    LOWER   LOIRE'.  29 

"  Theu  we  are  preceded  by  a  scout  ?  " 

"  Preceded  and  followed.  We  have  a  man  two  hundred 
steps  before  us  and  two  hundred  steps  behind  us." 

"  But  who  are  they  who  answer  the  scouts  ?  " 

"Peasants,  whose  cottages  are  along  the  road.  Look 
attentively  at  these  cottages  as  you  pass  them,  and  you 
will  see  a  small  skylight  open  and  the  head  of  a  man  come 
up  and  remain  there  motionless,  as  if  made  of  stone,  until 
we  are  out  of  sight.  If  we  were  soldiers  of  some  neighbor- 
ing cantonment  the  man  who  looked  at  us  would  instantly 
leave  his  house  by  the  back-door,  and  if  there  were  any 
meeting  or  assemblage  of  any  kind  in  the  neighborhood 
warning  would  be  given  in  time  of  the  approach  of  the 
troops."  Here  the  leader  interrupted  himself.  "Listen!" 
he  said. 

The  two  riders  stopped. 

"This  time,"  said  the  traveller,  "I  only  heard  one  cry, 
I  think,  — that  of  our  scout." 

"You  are  right;  no  cry  has  answered  his." 

"  Which  means  ?  " 

"That  troops  are  somewhere  about." 

So  saying,  he  put  his  horse  to  a  trot;  the  traveller  did 
the  same.  Almost  at  the  same  moment  they  heard  a  hur- 
ried step  behind  them  ;  it  was  that  of  their  rear  scout,  who 
now  reached  them,  running  as  fast  as  his  legs  could  carry 
him.  At  a  fork  of  the  road  they  found  the  man  who 
preceded  them  standing  still  and  undecided.  His  cry  had 
not  been  answered  from  either  road,  and  he  was  not  sure 
which  way  was  best  to  take.  Both  led  to  the  same  des- 
tination, but  the  one  to  left  was  the  longest.  After  a 
moment's  deliberation  between  the  chief  and.  the  guide  the 
latter  took  the  path  to  the  right.  The  Vende'an  and  the 
traveller  followed  him  in  about  five  minutes  and  were  in 
turn  followed  by  their  rear-guard  after  the  same  lapse  of 
time.  These  distances  were  carefully  kept  up  between  the 
advanced  guard,  the  army  corps,  and  the  rear-guard. 

Three  hundred  steps  farther  on  the  two  royalists  found 


30  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

their  forward  scout  once  more  stationary.  He  made  them 
a  sign  with  his  hand,  requesting  silence.  Then,  in  a  low 
voice,  he  said:  — 

"  A  patrol  !  " 

Listening  attentively  they  could  hear,  though  at  some 
distance,  the  regular  tramp  of  marching  men;  it  was,  in 
fact,  that  of  a  small  detachment  of  General  Dermoncourt's 
column  making  a  night  inspection. 

The  traveller  and  the  Vendéan  leader  were  now  in  one 
of  those  sunken  roads  between  banks  and  hedges  so  fre- 
quent in  La  Vendée  at  this  period,  and  more  especially 
during  that  of  the  great  war,  but  which  are  now  disappear- 
ing and  giving  place  to  well-constructed  parish  roads. 
The  banks  on  either  side  were  so  steep  that  it  would  have 
been  impossible  to  make  the  horses  mount  either  of  them, 
and  there  was  no  way  of  avoiding  the  patrol  if  they  met  it 
except  by  turning  short  round  and  gaining  some  open  place 
where  they  might  scatter  to  right  or  left.  But  in  case  of 
flight  the  patrol  of  foot-soldiers  would,  of  course,  hear  the 
horsemen  as  plainly  as  the  horsemen  heard  the  foot-soldiers. 

Suddenly  the  forward  scout  drew  the  attention  of  the 
Vendéan  leader  by  a  sign.  He  had  seen,  thanks  to 
a  momentary  gleam  of  moonlight  which  instantly  disap- 
peared, the  flash  of  bayonets;  and  his  finger,  pointing 
diagonally,  showed  the  Vendéan  leader  and  the  traveller 
the  course  they  ought  to  follow.  The  soldiers  (to  avoid 
the  water  which  usually  flowed  through  these  sunken  roads 
or  lanes  after  rainy  weather),  instead  of  marching  along 
the  lane,  had  climbed  the  bank  and  were  now  behind  the 
natural  hedge  which  grew  at  the  top  of  it.  This  was  on 
the  left  of  the  horsemen.  By  continuing  in  this  way  they 
would  pass  within  ten  feet  of  the  riders  and  the  scouts, 
who  were  hidden  below  them  in  the  sunken  lane.  If 
either  of  the  two  horses  had  neighed  the  little  troop  would 
have  been  taken  prisoners;  but,  as  if  the  animals  under- 
stood the  danger,  they  were  as  still  as  their  masters,  and 
the  soldiers  passed  on,  without  suspecting  that  any  one  was 


TRAVELLING    IN   THE    LOWER   LOIRE.  31 

near.  When  the  sound  of  their  footfalls  died  away  the 
travellers  breathed  again,  and  once  more  resumed  their 
march. 

A  quarter  of  an  hour  later  they  turned  from  the  road 
and  entered  the  forest  of  Machecoul.  There  they  were 
more  at  their  ease;  it  was  not  likely  that  the  soldiers 
would  enter  the  woods  at  night,  or  at  any  rate  take  any  but; 
the  mainroads  which,  like  great  arteries,  passed  through 
it.  By  taking  one  of  the  wood-paths  known  to  the  country- 
people,  they  had  little  to  fear. 

The  two  gentlemen  now  dismounted,  and  left  their 
horses  in  charge  of  one  of  the  scouts,  while  the  other  dis- 
appeared rapidly  in  the  darkness,  rendered  deeper  still  by 
the  leafing  out  of  the  May  foliage.  The  Vendéan  leader 
and  the  traveller  followed  the  same  path.  It  was  evident 
that  they  were  nearing  the  end  of  their  journey.  The 
abandonment  of  the  horses  amply  proved  it. 

In  fact,  Maître  Marc  and  the  Vendéan  had  hardly  gone 
two  hundred  yards  from  the  place  where  they  left  the 
horses  before  they  heard  the  hoot  of  an  owl.  The  Vendéan 
leader  put  his  hands  to  his  mouth,  and  in  reply  to  the 
long,  lugubrious  howl,  he  gave  the  sharp  and  piercing  cry 
of  the  screech-owl.  The  hoot  of  the  horned  owl  answered 
back. 

"There  's  our  man,"  said  the  Vendéan  leader. 

A  few  moments  later  the  sound  of  steps  was  heard  on 
the  path  before  them,  and  their  advanced  scout  came  in 
sight,  accompanied  by  a  stranger.  This  stranger  was  no 
other  than  our  friend  Jean  Oullier,  sole  and  consequently 
first  huntsman  to  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  who  had  tem- 
porarily renounced  hunting,  occupied  as.  he  was  by  the 
political  events  now  developing  around  him. 

In  his  previous  introductions  the  traveller  had  noticed 
the  use  of  one  formula:  "Here  is  a  gentleman  who  wishes 
to  speak  to  monsieur."  This  formula  was  now  changed; 
and  the  Vendéan  leader  said  to  Jean  Oullier,  "Here  is  a 
gentleman  who  wishes  to  speak  to  Petit-Pierre." 


32  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

To  this  Jean  Oullier  merely  replied:  — 

"Let  him  follow  me." 

The  traveller  stretched  out  his  hand  to  the  Vendéan 
leader,  who  shook  it  cordially.  Then  he  felt  in  his  pocket, 
intending  to  divide  the  contents  of  his  purse  between  the 
guides;  but  the  Vendéan  gentleman  guessed  his  intention, 
and  laying  a  hand  on  his  arm,  made  him  a  sign  not  to 
do  a  thing  which  would  seem  to  the  worthy  peasants  an 
insult. 

Maître  Marc  understood  the  matter,  and  a  friendly  grasp 
of  their  hands  paid  his  debt  to  the  peasants,  as  it  had  to 
their  leader.  After  which,  Jean  Oullier  took  the  path  by 
which  he  had  come,  saying  two  words,  with  the  brevity  of 
an  order  and  the  tone  of  an  invitation  :  — 

"Follow  me." 

The  traveller  was  beginning  to  get  accustomed  to  these 
curt,  mysterious  ways,  hitherto  unknown  to  him,  which 
revealed  if  not  actual  conspiracy,  at  least  approaching 
insurrection.  Shaded  as  the  Vendéan  leader  and  the 
guides  were  by  their  broad  hats,  he  had  scarcely  seen  their 
faces  ;  and  now  in  the  darkness  it  was  with  difficulty  that 
he  made  out  even  the  form  of  Jean  Oullier,  although  the 
latter  slackened  his  pace,  little  by  little,  until  he  fell  back 
almost  to  the  traveller's  side.  Maître  Marc  felt  that  his 
guide  had  something  to  say  to  him,  and  he  listened  atten- 
tively. Presently  he  heard  these  words,  uttered  like  a 
murmur:  — 

"We  are  watched;  a  man  is  following  us  through  the 
wood.  Do  not  be  disturbed  if  you  see  me  disappear. 
Wait  for  me  at  the  place  where  you  lose  sight  of  me." 

The  traveller  answered  by  a  simple  motion  of  the  head, 
which  meant,  "Very  good;  as  you  say." 

They  walked  on  fifty  steps  farther.  Suddenly  Jean 
Oullier  darted  into  the  wood.  Thirty  or  forty  feet  in  the 
depths  of  it  a  sound  was  heard  like  that  of  a  deer  rising 
in  affright.  The  noise  went  off  in  the  distance,  as  though 
it  were  indeed  a  deer  that  had  made  it.     Jean  Oullier's 


TRAVELLING    IN    THE    LOWER    LOIRE.  33 

steps  were  heard  in  the  same  direction.  Then  all  sounds 
died  away. 

The  traveller  leaned  against  an  oak  and  waited.  At  the 
end  of  twenty  minutes  a  voice  said  beside  him  :  — 

"Now,  we  '11  go  on." 

He  quivered.  The  voice  was  really  that  of  Jean 
Oullier,  but  the  old  huntsman  had  come  back  so  gently 
that  not  a  single  sound  betrayed  his  return. 

"  Well  ?  "  said  the  traveller. 

"  Lost  time  !  "  exclaimed  Jean  Oullier. 

"  No  one  there  ?  " 

"  Some  one  ;  but  the  villain  knows  the  wood  as  well  as 
I  do." 

"  So  that  you  did  n't  overtake  him  ?  " 

Oullier  shook  his  head  as  though  it  cost  him  too  much 
to  put  into  words  that  a  man  had  escaped  him. 

"And  you  don't  know  who  he  was  ?  " 

"I  suspect  one  man,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  stretching  his 
arm  toward  the  south;  "but  in  any  case  he  is  an  evil  one." 
Then,  as  they  reached  the  edge  of  the  woods,  he  added, 
"Here  we  are." 

The  traveller  now  saw  the  farmhouse  of  Banlœuvre 
looming  up  before  him.  Jean  Oullier  looked  attentively 
to  both  sides  of  the  road.  The  road  was  clear;  he  crossed 
it  alone.     Then  with  a  pass-key  he  opened  the  gate. 

"  Come  !  "  he  said. 

Maître  Marc  crossed  the  highway  rapidly  and  disap- 
peared through  the  gate,  which  closed  behind  him.  A 
white  figure  came  out  on  the  portico. 

"Who  's  there  ?  "  asked  a  woman's  voice,  but  a  strong, 
imperative  voice. 

"I,  Mademoiselle  Bertha,"  responded  Jean  Oullier. 

"You  are  not  alone,  my  friend  ?  " 

"  I  have  brought  the  gentleman  from  Paris  who  wishes 
to  speak  to  Petit-Pierre." 

Bertha  came  down  the  steps  and  met  the  traveller. 

"Come  in,  monsieur,"  she  said. 

VOL.  II. — 3 


34  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

And  she  led  the  way  into  a  salon  rather  poorly  fur- 
nished, though  the  floor  was  admirably  waxed  and  the 
curtains  irreproachably  clean.  A  great  fire  was  burning, 
and  near  the  fire  was  a  table  on  which  a  supper  was  already 
served. 

"Sit  down,  monsieur,"  said  the  young  girl  with  perfect 
grace,  which,  however,  was  not  without  a  certain  mascu- 
line tone  which  gave  it  much  originality.  "  You  must  be 
hungry  and  thirsty;  pray  eat  and  drink.  Petit-Pierre  is 
asleep  ;  but  he  gave  orders  to  be  waked  if  any  one  arrived 
from  Paris.  You  have  just  come  from  Paris,  have  you 
not  ?  " 

"Yes,  mademoiselle." 

"In  ten  minutes  I  will  return." 

And  Bertha  disappeared  like  a  vision.  The  traveller 
remained  a  few  seconds  motionless  with  amazement.  He 
was  an  observer,  and  never  had  he  seen  more  grace  and 
more  charm  mingled  with  strength  of  will  than  in  Bertha's 
demeanor.  She  might  be,  thought  he,  the  young  Achilles, 
disguised  as  a  woman,  before  he  saw  the  blade  of  Ulysses. 
Absorbed  in  this  thought  or  in  others  allied  to  it,  the 
traveller  forgot  to  eat  or  drink. 

Bertha  returned  as  she  had  promised. 

"Petit-Pierre  is  ready  to  receive  you,  monsieur,"  she 
said. 

The  traveller  rose;  Bertha  walked  before  him.  She 
held  in  her  hand  a  short  taper,  which  she  raised  to  light 
the  staircase,  and  which  lighted  her  own  face  at  the  same 
time.  The  traveller  looked  admiringly  at  her  beautiful 
black  hair  and  her  fine  black  eyes,  her  ivory  skin,  with  all 
its  signs  of  youth  and  health,  and  the  firm  and  easy  poise 
of  the  figure,  which  seemed  to  typify  a  goddess. 

He  murmured  with  a  smile,  remembering  his  Virgil,  — 
that  man  who  himself  is  a  smile  of  antiquity,  — "Incessu 
patuit  dea  !  " 

The  young  girl  rapped  at  the  door  of  a  bedroom. 

"Come  in,"  replied  a  woman's  voice. 


TRAVELLING   IN   THE   LOWER   LOIRE.  35 

The  door  opened.  The  young  girl  bowed  slightly  and 
allowed  the  traveller  to  pass  her.  It  was  easy  to  see  that 
humility  was  not  her  leading  virtue. 

The  traveller  then  passed  in.  The  door  closed  behind 
him,  and  Bertha  remained  outside. 


36  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 


IV. 

A   LITTLE   HISTOBY    DOES    NO    HARM. 

The  room  into  which  Maître  Marc  was  now  shown  had 
been  recently  built;  the  plastered  walls  were  damp,  and 
the  wainscot  showed  the  fibre  of  its  wood  under  the  slight 
coating  of  paint  that  covered  it.  In  this  room,  lying  on  a 
bedstead  of  common  pine  roughly  put  together,  he  saw  a 
woman,  and  in  that  woman  he  recognized  her  Koyal  High- 
ness the  Duchesse  de  Berry. 

Maître  Marc's  attention  fixed  itself  wholly  upon  her. 
The  sheets  of  the  miserable  bed  were  of  the  finest  lawn, 
and  this  luxury  of  white  and  exquisite  linen  was  the  only 
thing  about  her  which  testified  in  any  degree  to  her  station 
in  the  world.  A  shawl  with  red  and  green  checkers  formed 
her  counterpane.  A  paltry  fireplace  of  plaster,  with  a 
small  wooden  mantel,  warmed  the  apartment,  the  only  fur- 
niture of  which  was  a  table  covered  with  papers,  on  which 
were  a  pair  of  pistols,  and  two  chairs,  where  lay  the  gar- 
ments of  a  peasant-lad  and  a  brown  wig.  The  chair  with 
the  wig  stood  near  the  table,  that  with  the  clothes  was 
near  the  bed. 

The  princess  wore  on  her  head  one  of  those  woollen  coifs 
distinctive  of  the  Vendéan  peasant-women,  the  ends  of 
which  fell  on  her  shoulders.  By  the  light  of  two  wax  can- 
dles, placed  on  the  shabby  rosewood  night-table  (a  relic, 
evidently,  of  some  castle  furniture),  the  duchess  was  look- 
ing through  her  correspondence.  A  large  number  of 
letters,  placed  on  this  table  and  held  in  place  by  a  second 
pair  of  pistols,  which  served  as  a  paper-weight,  were  still 
unopened. 


A   LITTLE    HISTORY   DOES    NO    HARM.  37 

Madame  appeared  to  be  awaiting  the  new-comer  im- 
patiently, for  as  soon  as  she  saw  him  she  leaned  half  out 
of  her  bed  and  stretched  her  two  hands  toward  him.  He 
took  them,  kissed  them  respectfully,  and  the  duchess  felt 
a  tear  from  the  eyes  of  her  faithful  partisan  on  the  hand 
he  kept  longest  in  his  own. 

"  Tears  !  "  she  said.  "  You  do  not  bring  me  bad  news, 
monsieur,  surely  ?  " 

"They  come  from  my  heart,  Madame,"  replied  Maître 
Marc.  "  They  express  my  devotion  and  the  deep  regret  I 
feel  in  seeing  you  so  isolated,  so  lost  in  this  lonely  Ven- 
déan  farmhouse,  —  you,  whom  I  have  seen  —  " 

He  stopped,  for  the  tears  choked  his  voice.  The 
duchess  took  up  his  unfinished  phrase. 

"At  the  Tuileries,  you  mean,  on  the  steps  of  a  throne. 
Well,  my  good  friend,  I  was  far  worse  guarded  and  less 
well  served  there  than  I  am  here.  Here  I  am  guarded  and 
served  by  a  fidelity  which  shows  itself  in  devotion,  there  I 
was  served  by  the  self-interest  that  calculates.  But  come, 
to  business  ;  it  makes  me  uneasy  to  observe  that  you  are 
delaying.  Give  me  the  news  from  Paris  at  once  !  Is  it 
good  news  ?  " 

"Pray  believe,  Madame,"  said  Maître  Marc,  "I  entreat 
you  to  believe  in  my  deep  regret  at  being  forced  to  advise 
prudence,  —  I,  a  man  of  enthusiasm  !  " 

"Ah  !  ah  !  "  exclaimed  the  duchess.  "While  my  friends 
in  La  Vendée  are  being  killed  for  my  sake,  the  friends  in 
Paris  are  prudent,  are  they  ?  You  see  I  have  good  reason 
for  telling  you  I  am  better  served  and  guarded  here  than  I 
ever  was  at  the  Tuileries." 

"Better  guarded,  yes,  Madame;  better  served,  no  !  There 
are  moments  when  prudence  is  the  very  genius  of 
success." 

"But,  monsieur,"  said  the  duchess,  impatiently,  "I  am 
as  well  informed  on  the  state  of  Paris  as  you  can  be,  and  I 
know  that  a  revolution  is  imminent." 

"Madame,"  replied  the  lawyer,  in  a  firm,  sonorous  voice, 


38  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  we  have  lived  for  a  year  and  a  half  in  the  midst  of  riots 
and  tumults,  and  none  of  them  have  yet  been  able  to  rise 
to  the  level  of  revolution." 

"Louis-Philippe  is  unpopular." 

"Granted;  but  that  does  not  mean  that  Henri  V.  is 
popular.  " 

"Henri  V!  Henri  V!  My  son  is  not  Henri  V.,  mon- 
sieur; he  is  Henri  IV.   the  Second." 

"  As  for  that,  Madame,  may  I  be  allowed  to  say  that  he 
is  still  too  young  to  enable  us  to  be  sure  of  his  true  name 
and  nature.  The  more  we  are  devoted  to  our  leader  the 
more  we  owe  him  the  truth." 

"The  truth  !  yes,  yes.  I  ask  for  it;  I  want  it.  But 
what  is  the  truth  ?  " 

"Madame  it  is  this.  Unfortunately,  the  memories  of  a 
people  are  lost  when  their  horizon  is  narrow.  The  French 
people  —  I  mean  that  material,  brute  force  which  makes 
convulsions  and  sometimes  (when  inspired  from  above) 
revolutions  — ■  has  two  great  recollections  that  take  the  place 
of  all  others.  One  goes  back  forty-three  years,  the  other 
seventeen  years.  The  first  is  the  taking  of  the  Bastille; 
in  other  words  the  victory  of  the  people  over  royalty,  —  a 
victory  that  bestowed  the  tricolor  banner  upon  the  nation. 
The  second  memory  is  the  double  restoration  of  1814  and 
1815;  the  victory  of  royalty  over  the  masses,  — a  victory 
which  imposed  the  white  banner  on  the  nation.  Madame, 
in  great  national  movements  all  is  symbolic.  The  tricolor 
flag  is  liberty  to  the  people;  it  bears  inscribed  upon  its 
pennant  the  thought,  'By  token  of  this  flag  we  conquer.' 
The  white  flag  is  the  banner  of  despotism;  it  bears  upon 
its  double  face  the  sign,  'By  token  of  this  flag  we  are 
conquered.'  " 

"  Monsieur  !  " 

"You  asked  for  the  truth,  Madame;  let  me,  therefore, 
tell  it  to  you." 

"Yes;  but  after  you  have  told  it  you  will  allow  me  to 
reply." 


Portrait  of  Louis  Philippe. 


A   LITTLE    HISTORY    DOES    NO    HARM.  39 

"Ah,  Madame,  I  should  be  glad  indeed  if  your  reply 
could  convince  me." 

"Goon." 

"You  left  Paris  on  the  28th  of  July,  Madame;  you  did 
not  witness  the  fury  with  which  the  populace  tore  down 
the  white  flag  and  trampled  on  the  fleurs-de-lis." 

"  The  flag  of  Denain  and  of  Taillebourg  !  the  fleurs-de-lis 
of  Saint-Louis  and  of  Louis  XIV.  !  " 

"Unhappily,  Madame,  the  populace  remember  only 
Waterloo;  they  know  only  Louis  XVI, — a  defeat  and 
an  execution.  Well,  the  great  difficulty  I  foresee  for 
your  son,  the  descendant  of  Saint-Louis  and  of  Louis 
XIV.,  is  that  very  flag  of  Taillebourg  and  of  Denain. 
If  his  Majesty  Henri  V.,  or  Henry  IV.  the  Second,  as 
you  so  intelligently  call  him,  returns  to  Paris  bearing 
the  white  banner,  he  will  not  pass  the  faubourg  Saint- 
Antoine;  before  he  reaches  the  Bastille  he  is  dead." 

"  And  if  he  enters  with  the  tricolor,  —  what  then  ?  " 

"Worse  still,  Madame;  he  is  dishonored." 

The  duchess  bounded  in  her  bed.  But  at  first  she  was 
silent;  then,  after  a  pause,  she  said:  — 

"Perhaps  it  is  the  truth;  but  it  is  hard." 

"I  promised  you  the  whole  truth,  and  I  keep  my  word." 

"But,  if  that  is  your  conviction,  monsieur,  why  do  you 
remain  attached  to  a  party  which  has  no  possible  chance 
of  success  ? " 

"  Because  I  have  sworn  allegiance  with  heart  and  lips  to 
that  white  banner  without  which,  and  with  which,  your 
son  can  never  return,  and  I  would  rather  die  than  be 
dishonored." 

The  duchess  was  once  more  silent. 

"But,"  she  said  presently,  "all  this  that  you  tell  me 
does  not  tally  with  the  information  which  induced  me  to 
come  to  France." 

"No,  doubtless  it  does  not,  Madame;  but  you  must 
remember  one  thing,  —  if  truth  does  sometimes  reach  a 
reigning  prince  it  is  never  told  to  a  dethroned  one." 


40  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Permit  me  to  say  that  in  your  capacity  as  a  lawyer, 
monsieur,  you  may  be  suspected  of  cultivating  paradox." 

"Paradox,  Madame,  is  one  of  the  many  facets  of  elo- 
quence; only  here,  in  presence  of  your  Royal  Highness, 
my  purpose  is  not  to  be  eloquent,  but  to  be  true." 

"Pardon  me,  but  you  said  just  now  that  truth  was  never 
told  to  dethroned  princes;  either  you  were  mistaken  then 
or  you  are  misleading  me  now." 

The  lawyer  bit  his  lips;  he  was  hoist  with  his  own 
petard. 

"  Did  I  say  never,  Madame  ?  " 

"You  said  never." 

"  Then  let  us  suppose  there  is  an  exception,  and  that  I 
am  permitted  by  God  to  be  that  exception." 

"Agreed.  And  I  now  ask,  why  is  truth  not  told  to 
dethroned  princes  ?  " 

"Because  while  princes  on  their  thrones  may  have,  at 
times,  men  of  satisfied  ambition  about  them,  dethroned 
princes  have  only  inordinate  ambitions  to  satisfy.  No 
doubt,  Madame,  you  have  certain  generous  hearts  about 
you  who  devote  themselves  to  your  cause  with  complete 
self-abnegation;  but  there  are,  none  the  less,  many  others 
who  regard  your  return  to  France  solely  as  a  path  opened 
to  their  private  ends,  to  their  personal  reputation,  fortune, 
honor.  There  are,  besides,  dissatisfied  men  who  have  lost 
their  position  and  are  craving  to  re-conquer  it  and  avenge 
themselves  on  those  who  turned  them  out  of  it.  Well, 
all  such  persons  take  a  false  view  of  facts;  they  cannot 
perceive  the  truth  of  the  situation.  Their  desires  become 
hopes,  their  hopes  beliefs;  they  dream  incessantly  of  a 
revolution  which  may  come  possibly,  but  most  assuredly 
not  when  they  expect  it.  They  deceive  themselves  and 
they  deceive  you  ;  they  began  by  lying  to  themselves,  and 
now  they  are  lying  to  you.  They  are  dragging  you  into 
the  danger  they  are  rushing  into  themselves.  Hence  the 
error,  the  fatal  error,  into  which  you  are  now  being  hur- 
ried,  Madame,  —  an  error  T  implore  you  to  recognize  in 


A   LITTLE    HISTORY    DOES   NO    HARM.  41 

presence  of  the  truth  which  I  have,  so  cruelly  perhaps, 
unveiled  before  your  eyes." 

"In  short,"  said  the  duchess,  all  the  more  impatiently 
because  these  words  confirmed  those  she  had  heard  during 
the  conference  at  the  château  de  Souday,  "  what  is  it  that 
you  have  brought  in  your  toga,  Maître  Cicero?  Is  it  peace 
or  war  ?     Out  with  it  !  " 

"As  it  is  proper  that  we  maintain  the  traditions  of  con- 
stitutional royalty,  I  answer  your  Highness  that  it  is  for 
her,  in  her  capacity  as  regent,  to  decide." 

"  Yes,  indeed  ;  and  have  my  Chambers  refuse  me  subsi- 
dies if  I  do  not  decide  as  they  wish.  Oh,  Maître  Marc,  I 
know  the  fictions  of  your  constitutional  régime,  the  prin- 
cipal feature  of  which  is  to  do  the  work,  not  of  those  who 
speak  wisely,  but  of  those  who  talk  the  most.  But  you 
must  have  heard  the  opinions  of  my  faithful  and  trusty 
adherents  as  to  the  present  opportunity  for  a  great  upris- 
ing. What  is  that  opinion  ?  What  is  your  own  opinion  ? 
We  have  talked  of  truth;  truth  is  sometimes  an  awful 
spectre.     No  matter;  woman  as  I  am,  I  dare  to  evoke  it." 

"It  is  because  I  am  convinced  there  is  the  stuff  of 
twenty  kings  in  Madame's  head  and  heart  that  I  have  not 
hesitated  to  take  upon  myself  a  mission  which  I  feel  to 
be  distressing." 

"Ah,  here  we  come  to  the  point!  Less  diplomacy,  if 
you  please,  Maître  Marc  ;  speak  out  firmly,  as  you  should 
to  one  who  is,  what  I  am  here,  a  soldier." 

Then,  observing  that  the  traveller,  taking  off  his  cravat, 
was  tearing  it  apart  in  search  of  a  paper. 

"  Give  it  me  !  give  it  me  !  "  she  cried  ;  "  I  can  do  that 
quicker  than  you." 

The  letter  was  written  in  cipher. 

"I  should  lose  time  in  making  it  out,"  said  the  duchess; 
"read  it  to  me.  It  must  be  easy  to  you,  who  probably 
know  what  is  in  it." 

Maître  Marc  took  the  paper  from  her  hand  and  read, 
without  hesitating,  the  following  letter  :  — 


42  THE    LAST   VENDEE. 

"  Those  persons  in  whom  an  honorable  confidence  has  been 
reposed  cannot  refrain  from  testifying  their  regret  at  unwise 
councils  which  have  brought  about  the  present  crisis.  Those  coun- 
cils were  given,  no  doubt,  by  zealous  men  ;  but  those  men  little 
understand  the  actual  state  of  things,  or  the  condition  of  the 
public  mind. 

They  deceive  themselves  if  they  think  there  is  any  possibility 
of  an  uprising  in  Paris.  It  would  be  impossible  to  find  twelve 
hundred  men,  not  connected  with  the  police,  who  would  consent 
to  make  a  riot  in  the  streets  and 
Guard  and  the  faithful  garrison. 

They  deceive  themselves  likewise  about  La  Vendée,  just  as  they 
deceived  themselves  about  Marseille  and  the  South.  La  Vendee, 
that  land  of  devotion  and  sacrifice,  is  controlled  by  a  numerous 
army  supported  by  the  population  of  the  cities,  which  are  almost 
wholly  anti-legitimist;  a  rising  of  the  peasantry  could  only  end 
in  devastating  the  country  and  in  consolidating  the  present  govern- 
ment by  an  easy  victory. 

It  is  thought  that  if  the  mother  of  Henri  V.  be  really  in  France 
she  should  hasten  her  departure  as  much  as  possible,  after  exhort- 
ing all  the  Vendéan  leaders  to  keep  absolutely  quiet.  If,  instead 
of  organizing  civil  war,  she  appeals  for  peace,  she  would  have  the 
double  glory  of  doing  a  grand  and  courageous  deed  and  of  pre- 
venting the  effusion  of  French  blood. 

The  true  friends  of  Legitimacy,  who  have  not  been  informed  of 
present  intentions,  and  not  consulted  on  the  perilous  risks  which 
are  being  taken,  and  who  have  known  nothing  of  acts  until  they 
were  accomplished,  desire  to  place  the  responsibility  of  those  acts 
on  the  persons  who  have  advised  and  promoted  them.  They  dis- 
claim either  honor  or  blame  for  whatever  result  of  fortune  may 
be  the  upshot." 

During  the  reading  of  this  communication  Madame  was 
a  prey  to  the  keenest  agitation.  Her  face,  habitually 
pale,  was  flushed;  her  trembling  hand  pushed  back  the 
woollen  cap  she  wore,  and  was  thrust  through  and  through 
her  hair.  She  did  not  utter  a  word  or  interrupt  the  reader 
in  any  way,  but  it  was  evident  that  her  calm  preceded  a 
tempest.  In  order  to  divert  it,  Maître  Marc  said,  as  he 
folded  the  letter  and  gave  it  to  her  :  — 

"I  did  not  write  that  letter,  Madame." 


A    LITTLE    HISTORY    DOES    NO   HARM.  43 

"No,"  replied  the  duchess,  unable  to  restrain  herself 
any  longer;  "but  he  who  brought  it  was  capable  of 
writing  it." 

Maître  Marc  felt  sure  that  he  should  gain  nothing  in 
dealing  with  that  eager,  impressionable  nature  if  he  low- 
ered his  head.  He  therefore  drew  himself  up  to  his  full 
height. 

"Yes,"  he  said;  "and  he  blushes  for  a  moment's  weak- 
ness. And  he  now  declares  to  your  Royal  Highness  that 
while  he  does  not  approve  of  certain  expressions  in  the 
letter  he  shares  the  sentiment  that  dictated  it." 

"Sentiment!"  cried  the  duchess.  "Call  it  selfishness; 
call  it  caution,  that  comes  very  near  to  —  " 

"Cowardice,  you  mean,  Madame.  Yes,  that  heart  is 
cowardly,  indeed,  that  leaves  all  and  comes  to  share  a 
situation  it  never  counselled.  Yes,  the  man  is  selfish  who 
stands  here  and  says,  'You  asked  for  the  truth,  Madame, 
and  here  it  is;  but  if  it  pleases  your  Royal  Highness  to 
advance  to  a  death  as  useless  as  it  is  certain  I  shall  march 
beside  you.'  " 

The  duchess  was  silent  for  a  few  moments;  then  she 
resumed,  more  gently  :  — 

"I  appreciate  your  devotion,  monsieur,  but  you  do  not 
understand  the  temper  of  La  Vendee;  you  derive  your 
information  from  those  who  oppose  the  movement." 

"So  be  it.  Let  us  suppose  that  which  is  not;  let  us 
suppose  that  La  Vendée  will  surround  you  with  battalions 
and  spare  neither  blood  nor  sacrifices  for  the  cause  ;  never- 
theless La  Vendee  is  not  France." 

"Having  told  me  that  the  people  of  Paris  hate  the 
fleur-de-lis  and  despise  the  white  flag,  do  you  now  want 
me  to  believe  that  all  France  shares  those  feelings  of  the 
Parisian  populace  ?  " 

"Alas!  Madame,  France  is  logical;  it  is  we  who  are 
pursuing  chimeras  in  dreaming  of  an  alliance  between  the 
divine  right  of  kings  and  popular  sovereignty,  —  two 
things  which  howl  and   rend  each  other  when   coupled. 


44  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

The  divine  right  leads  fatally  and  inevitably  to  absolut- 
ism, and  France  will  no  longer  submit  to  absolutism." 

"Absolutism  !  absolutism  !  a  fine  word  to  frighten 
children  !  " 

"No,  it  is  not  a  fine  word;  it  is  a  terrible  one.  Per- 
haps we  are  nearer  to  the  thing  itself  than  we  think; 
but  I  grieve  to  say  to  you,  Madame,  that  I  do  not  believe 
that  God  reserves  to  your  royal  son  the  dangerous  honor  of 
muzzling  the  popular  lion." 

"Why  not,  monsieur  ?  " 

"Because  it  is  he  whom  that  lion  most  distrusts.  The 
moment  it  sees  him  approaching  in  the  distance,  the  lion 
shakes  his  mane,  sharpens  his  teeth  and  claws,  and  will 
suffer  him  to  come  nearer  only  for  the  purpose  of  spring- 
ing upon  him.  No  one  could  be  the  grandson  of  Louis 
XVI.  with  impunity,   Madame." 

"  Then,  according  to  you,  the  Bourbon  dynasty  has  seen 
its  last  days." 

"God  grant  that  such  an  idea  may  never  come  to  me, 
Madame.  What  I  mean  is  that  revolutions  never  go  back- 
ward ;  I  believe  that  if  they  once  come  to  birth  it  is  best 
not  to  stop  their  development.  It  is  attempting  the  impos- 
sible ;  it  is  like  trying  to  drive  a  mountain  torrent  back- 
ward to  its  source.  Either  our  present  revolution  will  be 
fruitful  of  national  good, —  in  which  case,  Madame,  I  know 
the  patriotism  of  your  feelings  too  well  not  to  be  sure  you 
would  accept  it,  —  or  it  will  be  a  barren  failure,  and  then 
the  faults  of  those  who  have  seized  the  sovereign  power 
will  serve  your  son  far  better  than  all  our  efforts  could." 

"But,  in  that  case,  monsieur,  things  may  go  on  thus  to 
the  end  of  time." 

"Madame,  his  Majesty  Henri  V.  is  a  principle,  and 
principles  share  with  God  the  privilege  of  having  their 
kingdom  in  eternity." 

"Therefore,  it  is  your  opinion  that  I  ought  to  renounce 
my  present  hopes,  abandon  my  compromised  friends,  and 
three  days  hence,  when  they  take  up  arms,  leave  them  in 


A   LITTLE   HISTORY   DOES   NO   HARM.  45 

the  lurch  and  justify  the  man  who  tells  them,  'Marie- 
Caroline,  for  whom  you  are  ready  to  fight,  for  whom  you 
are  ready  to  die,  despairs  of  her  prospects  and  recoils  at 
fate;  Marie-Caroline  is  afraid.'  Oh,  no;  never,  never, 
never,  monsieur  !  " 

"  Your  friends  will  not  be  able  to  make  you  that  reproach, 
Madame,  for  they  will  not  take  arms,  as  you  suppose,  a 
few  days  hence." 

"  Are  you  ignorant  that  the  day  is  fixed  for  the  24th  ?  " 

"The  order  is  countermanded." 

"Countermanded  !  "  cried  the  duchess;  "when  ?" 

"To-day." 

"To-day!"  she  exclaimed,  lifting  herself  up  by  her 
wrists.     "By  whom?" 

"By  the  man  you  yourself  commanded  them  to  obey." 

"  The  maréchal  ?  " 

"The  maréchal,  following  the  instructions  of  the  com- 
mittee in  Paris." 

"But,"  cried  the  duchess,  "am  I  to  be  of  no  account  ?" 

"You,  Madame!"  exclaimed  the  messenger,  falling  on 
one  knee  and  clasping  his  hands,  —  "  you  are  all.  That  is 
why  we  seek  your  safety  ;  it  is  why  we  will  not  let  you  be 
sacrificed  in  a  useless  effort;  that  is  why  we  fear  to  let 
you  risk  your  popularity  by  a  defeat." 

"Monsieur,  monsieur,"  said  the  duchess,  "if  Maria 
Theresa's  counsellors  had  been  as  timid  as  mine  she  would 
never  have  re-conquered  the  throne  of  her  son." 

"  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  to  secure,  at  a  later  period,  your 
son's  throne  that  we  now  say  to  you,  Madame,  'Leave 
France  ;  let  the  people  know  you  as  an  angel  of  peace,  not 
as  a  demon  of  war.  '  " 

"  Oh  !  oh  !  "  exclaimed  the  duchess,  pressing  her  clenched 
fists  to  her  eyes;  "what  humiliation  !  what  cowardice  !  " 

Maître  Marc  continued  as  though  he  did  not  hear  her,  or 
rather  as  if  his  resolution  to  make  known  a  truth  to  her 
mind  was  so  fixed  that  nothing  could  change  it. 

"  All  precautions  are  taken  to  enable  Madame  to  leave 


46  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

France  without  molestation.  A  vessel  is  cruising  in  the 
bay  of  Bourgneuf  ;  your  Highness  can  be  on  board  of  her 
in  three  hours." 

"  Oh,  noble  land  of  Vendee  !  "  cried  the  duchess  ;  "  could 
I  have  believed  you  would  repulse  me,  drive  me  from 
you,  —  me  who  came  to  you  in  the  name  of  your  God  and 
your  king  ?  Ah  !  I  thought  that  Paris  alone  was  unfaith- 
ful, ungrateful  ;  but  you,  —  you  to  whom  I  come  seeking 
the  recovery  of  a  throne,  you  deny  me  so  much  as  a 
place  of  burial  !  Oh,  no,  no;  I  never  could  have  be- 
lieved it  !  " 

"But  you  will  go,  will  you  not,  Madame?"  said  the 
messenger,  still  on  his  knees,  with  clasped  hands. 

"Yes,  I  will  go,"  said  the  duchess.  "I  will  leave 
France.  But  remember  this,  I  shall  never  return,  for  I 
will  never  come  with  foreigners.  They  are  only  waiting, 
as  you  well  know,  for  the  right  moment  to  form  a  coalition 
against  Philippe.  When  that  moment  comes  they  will  ask 
me  for  my  son,  —  not  that  they  care  for  him  more  than 
they  cared  for  Louis  XVI.  in  1792,  or  Louis  XVIII.  in 
1813,  but  he  can  be  made  the  means  of  their  having  a  party 
in  Paris.  Well,  I  say  to  you,  no  !  they  shall  not  have  my 
son  ;  no  !  they  shall  not  have  him,  not  for  a  kingdom  ! 
Rather  than  that  I  will  fly  with  him  to  the  mountains  of 
Calabria.  I  tell  you,  monsieur,  if  he  must  buy  the  throne 
by  the  cession  of  a  province,  a  town,  a  fortress,  a  house, 
a  cottage  like  that  I  am  now  in,  I  swear  as  regent  and  as 
his  mother,  that  he  shall  never  be  king  of  France.  And 
now,  that  is  all  I  have  to  say  to  you.  Go  back  to  those 
who  sent  you  and  repeat  my  words." 

Maître  Marc  rose  and  bowed  to  the  duchess,  expecting 
that  as  he  left  she  would  offer  one  of  the  two  hands 
she  had  stretched  out  to  him  when  he  came;  but  she 
was  motionless,  stern,  her  fists  were  closed,  her  brows 
knitted. 

"  God  guard  your  Highness  !  "  said  the  messenger, 
believing  it  was  useless  to  stay  longer,  and  thinking,  not 


A   LITTLE    HISTORY    DOES   NO    IIAKM.  47 

without  reason,  that  as  long  as  he  was  there  not  a  muscle 
of  that  generous  organization  would  give  way. 

He  was  not  mistaken  ;  but  the  door  was  scarcely  closed 
behind  him  before  Madame,  exhausted  by  the  strain,  fell 
back  upon  her  bed  and  sobbed  aloud  :  — 

"Oh,  Bonneville  !  my  pocj  i-Joune  ville  !  " 


48  THE   LAST   VENDEE. 


PETIT-PIERRE    RESOLVES    ON    KEEPING    A    BRAVE    HEART 
AGAINST    MISFORTUNE. 

Immediately  after  the  conversation  we  have  just  reported, 
the  traveller  left  the  farmhouse;  he  was  anxious  to  be 
back  at  Nantes  before  the  middle  of  the  day.  A  few 
moments  after  his  departure,  though  it  was  scarcely  day- 
light, Petit-Pierre,  dressed  in  her  peasant's  clothes,  left 
her  room  and  went  to  the  hall  on  the  ground-floor  of  the 
farmhouse. 

This  was  a  vast  room,  the  dingy  walls  of  which  were 
denuded  in  many  places  of  the  plaster  that  originally 
covered  them,  while  the  beams  across  the  ceiling  were 
blackened  by  smoke.  It  was  furnished  with  a  large  ward- 
robe of  polished  oak,  the  brass  locks  and  handles  of  which 
sparkled  in  the  shadow  of  the  dull,  brown  masses  about  it. 
The  rest  of  the  furniture  consisted  of  two  beds,  standing 
parallel,  surrounded  by  curtains  of  green  serge,  two  com- 
mon pitchers,  and  a  clock  in  a  tall  carved  wooden  case,  the 
ticking  of  which  was  the  only  sign  of  life  in  the  silence  of 
the  night. 

The  fireplace  was  broad  and  high,  and  its  shelf  was 
draped  with  a  band  of  serge  like  that  of  the  curtains; 
only,  instead  of  fading  to  a  rusty  green,  this  piece  of  stuff, 
owing  to  the  smoke,  had  changed  to  a  dingy  brown.  On 
this  mantel-shelf  were  the  usual  adornments,  —  a  wax 
figure,  representing  the  Child  Jesus,  covered  by  a  glass 
shade;  two  china  pots,  containing  artificial  flowers,  covered 
by  gauze  to  protect  them  from  flies;  a  double-barrelled 
gun  ;  and  a  branch  of  consecrated  holly. 


PETIT-FIEKKE    KEEPS    A    BKAVE    HEART.  49 

This  hall  was  separated  from  the  stable  by  a  thin  board 
partition,  and  through  this  partition,  in  which  were  sliding 
panels,  the  cows  poked  their  heads  to  eat  the  provender 
that  was  laid  for  them  on  the  floor  of  the  room. 

When  Petit- Pierre  opened  the  door  a  man  who  was 
warming  himself  under  the  high  mantel  of  the  fireplace 
rose  and  walked  away  respectfully  to  leave  his  seat  free  to 
the  new-comer.  But  Petit-Pierre  made  him  a  sign  with 
one  hand  to  resume  his  chair,  gently  pushing  him  with 
the  other.  Petit-Pierre  then  fetched  a  stool  and  sat  down 
in  the  farther  corner  of  the  fireplace  opposite  to  the  man, 
who  was  no  other  than  Jean  Oullier.  Then  she  leaned 
her  head  on  her  hand,  put  her  elbow  on  her  knee,  and  sat 
absorbed  in  reflection,  while  her  foot,  beaten  with  a  fever- 
ish motion  which  communicated  a  tremulous  movement  to 
the  whole  body,  showed  that  she  was  under  the  shock  of 
some  deep  vexation. 

Jean  Oullier,  who,  on  his  side,  had  subjects  for  thought 
and  anxiety,  remained  silent  and  gloomy,  twisting  his 
pipe,  which  he  had  taken  from  his  mouth  when  Petit- 
Pierre  entered  the  room,  mechanically  in  his  fingers,  and 
issuing  from  his  meditations  only  to  give  vent  to  sighs 
that  seemed  like  threats,  or  to  push  the  burning  logs 
together  on  the  hearth. 

Petit-Pierre  spoke  first. 

"Were  not  you  smoking  when  I  came  in,  my  brave 
fellow  ?  "  she  said. 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  with  a  very  unusual  tone  of  respect 
in  his  voice. 

"Why  don't  you  continue  ?  " 

"I  am  afraid  it  may  annoy  you." 

"  Nonsense  !  We  are  bivouacking,  or  something  very 
like  it,  my  friend;  and  I  am  all  the  more  anxious  it  should 
be  comfortable  for  all,  for  it  is  our  last  night  together." 

Enigmatical  as  these  words  were  to  him,  Jean  Oullier 
did  not  allow  himself  to  ask  their  meaning.  With  the 
wonderful  tact  which  characterizes  the  Vendéan  peasantry, 

VOL.   ii.  —  4 


50  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

he  refrained  from  profiting  by  the  permission  given,  but 
without  showing  by  look  or  sign  that  he  knew  the  real 
rank  and  quality  of  Petit-Pierre. 

In  spite  of  Petit-Pierre's  own  pre-occupations,  she 
noticed  the  clouds  which  darkened  the  peasant's  face. 
She  again  broke  silence. 

"  What  is  the  matter,  my  dear  Jean  Oullier  ?  "  she 
asked.  "Why  do  you  look  so  gloomy  when  I  should 
expect,  on  the  contrary,  to  see  you  joyful  ?  " 

"  Why  should  I  be  joyful  ?  "  asked  the  old  keeper. 

"  Because  a  good  and  faithful  servant  like  you  shares  in 
the  happiness  of  his  masters;  and  I  think  your  young 
mistress  looks  happy  enough  to  have  a  little  of  her  joy 
reflected  in  your  face." 

"  God  grant  her  joy  may  last  !  "  replied  Jean  Oullier, 
with  a  doubtful  smile. 

"Why,  Jean,  surely  you  do  not  object  to  marriages  of 
inclination  !  For  my  part,  I  love  them  ;  they  are  the  only 
ones  I  have  ever,  in  all  my  life,  been  willing  to  help  on." 

"I  have  no  objection  to  such  marriages,"  replied  Jean 
Oullier;  "but  I  have  a  great  objection  to  this  husband." 

«  why  ?  " 

Jean  Oullier  did  not  reply. 

"Speak,"  said  Petit-Pierre. 

The  Vendéan  shook  his  head. 

"Tell  me,  I  beg  of  you,  my  dear  Jean.  I  know  your 
young  ladies,  and  I  know  now  that  they  are  like  your  own 
children  to  you;  you  need  not  have  any  secrets  from  me. 
Though  I  am  not  the  Holy  Father  himself,  you  know  very 
well  that  I  have  power  to  bind  and  unbind." 

"I  know  that  you  can  do  much,"  said  Jean  Oullier. 

"  Then  tell  me  why  you  disapprove  of  this  marriage  ?  " 

"Because  disgrace  attaches  to  the  name  every  woman 
must  bear  if  she  marries  Monsieur  Michel  de  la  Logerie; 
and  this  woman  ought  not  to  give  up  one  of  the  noblest 
names  in  the  land  to  take  it." 

"Ah,    my  dear   Jean,"    said   Petit-Fierre,    with   a   sad 


PETIT-PIERRE    KEEPS    A   BRAVE    HEART.  51 

smile,  "you  are  doubtless  ignorant  that  in  these  days  chil- 
dren do  not  inherit  as  a  tradition  either  the  virtues  or  the 
faults  of  their  ancestors." 

"Yes,  I  was  ignorant  of  that,"  said  Jean  Oullier. 

"It  is  task  enough,"  continued  Petit-Pierre,  "or  so  it 
appears,  for  each  man  to  answer  for  himself  in  our  day. 
See  how  many  fail  !  —  how  many  are  missing  from  our 
ranks,  where  the  name  they  bear  ought  to  have  kept  them  ! 
Let  us,  therefore,  be  grateful  to  those  who,  in  spite  of 
their  father's  example,  in  spite  of  their  family  ties,  or  the 
temptations  to  their  personal  ambition,  come  to  our  banner 
with  the  old  chivalric  sentiment  of  devotion  and  fidelity 
in  misfortune." 

Jean  Oullier  raised  his  head  and  said,  with  a  look  of 
hatred  he  did  not  attempt  to  conceal  :  — 

"  You  may  be  ignorant  —  " 

Petit-Pierre  interrupted  him. 

"I  am  not  ignorant,"  she  said.  "I  know  the  crime  you 
lay  to  the  Logerie  father;  but  I  know  also  what  I  owe  to 
the  son,  wounded  for  me  and  still  bleeding  from  thai, 
wound.  As  to  his  father's  crime,  —  if  his  father  really 
committed  it,  which  God  alone  can  decide,  —  he  expiated 
that  crime  by  a  violent  death." 

"Yes,"  replied  Jean  Oullier,  lowering  his  head;  "that 
is  true." 

"Who  dares  to  penetrate  the  judgments  of  Providence  ? 
Can  you  venture  to  say  that  when  he,  in  his  turn,  appeared 
before  that  Judgment-seat,  pale  and  bloody  from  a  violent 
death,  the  Divine  mercy  was  not  laid  upon  his  head  ? 
Why,  then,  if  God  himself  may  have  been  satisfied,  should 
you  be  more  stern,  more  implacable  than  God  ?  " 

Jean  Oullier  listened  without  replying.  Every  word  of 
Petit-Pierre  made  the  religious  chords  of  his  heart  vibrate, 
and  shook  his  resolutions  of  hatred  toward  Baron  Michel, 
but  did  not  uproot  them  altogether. 

"Monsieur  Michel,"  continued  Petit-Pierre,  "is  a  good 
and   brave   young   man,    gentle   and   modest,   simple   and 


52  THE   LAST   VENDEE. 

devoted;  he  is  rich,  which  certainly  does  no  harm.  I 
think  that  your  young  mistress,  with  her  rather  self-willed 
character  and  her  habits  of  independence,  could  not  do 
better.  I  am  convinced  she  will  be  perfectly  happy  with 
a  man  of  his  nature.  Why  ask  more  of  God,  my  poor  Jean 
Oullier  ?  Forget  the  past,"  added  Petit-Pierre,  with  a  sigh. 
"Alas  !  if  we  remembered  all,  we  could  love  nothing." 

Jean  Oullier  shook  his  head. 

"Monsieur  Petit -Pierre,"  he  said,  "you  speak  well  and 
like  a  good  Christian;  but  there  are  things  that  cannot  be 
driven  from  the  memory,  and,  unfortunately  for  Monsieur 
Michel,  my  connection  with  his  father  is  one  of  them." 

"I  do  not  ask  your  secrets,  Jean,"  replied  Petit-Pierre, 
gravely  ;  "  but  the  young  baron,  as  you  know,  has  shed  his 
blood  for  me.  He  has  been  my  guide;  he  has  given  me  a 
refuge  in  this  house,  which  is  his.  I  feel  something  more 
than  regard  for  him,  —  I  feel  gratitude  ;  and  it  would  be  a 
real  grief  to  me  to  think  that  dissensions  existed  among 
my  friends.  So,  my  dear  Jean  Oullier,  in  the  name  of  the 
devotion  you  have  shown  to  my  person,  I  ask  you,  if  not 
to  abjure  your  memories,  —  for,  as  you  say,  we  cannot 
always  do  that,  —  at  any  rate,  to  stifle  your  hatred  until 
time,  until  the  sight  of  the  happiness  the  son  of  your 
enemy  bestows  upon  the  child  you  have  brought  up  and 
loved,  has  effaced  that  hatred  from  your  soul." 

"Let  that  happiness  come  in  the  way  God  wills,  and  I 
will  thank  Him  for  it;  but  I  do  not  believe  it  will  enter 
the  château  de  Souday  with  Monsieur  Michel." 

"  Why  not,  if  you  please,  my  good  Jean  ?  " 

"Because  the  closer  I  look,  Monsieur  Petit-Pierre,  the 
more  I  doubt  whether  Monsieur  Michel  loves  Mademoiselle 
Bertha." 

Petit-Pierre  shrugged  her  shoulders  impatiently. 

"Permit  me,  my  dear  Jean  Oullier,"  she  said,  "to  doubt 
your  perspicacity  in  love." 

"You  may  be  right,"  said  the  old  Vendéan;  "but  if  this 
marriage  with  Mademoiselle  Bertha  —  the  greatest  honor 


PETIT-PIERRE    KEEPS    A    BRAVE    HEART.  53 

to  winch  that  young  man  can  aspire  —  really  fulfils  his 
wishes,  why  did  he  make  such  haste  to  leave  the  farm- 
house; and  why  has  he  been  roaming  all  night  in  the 
woods,  like  a  madman  ?  " 

"If  he  has  been  wandering  all  night,  as  you  say,"  said 
Petit-Pierre,  smiling,  "it  is  because  happiness  will  not  let 
him  rest;  if  he  has  really  left  the  farm,  it  is  probably  on 
some  business  for  the  cause." 

"  I  hope  so.  I  am  not  of  those  who  think  only  of  them- 
selves; and  though  I  am  quite  determined  to  leave  the 
family  when  the  son  of  Michel  enters  it,  I  will  none  the 
less  pray  God,  night  and  morning,  to  promote  the  child's 
happiness.  At  the  same  time,  I  shall  watch  that  man. 
If  he  loves  her,  as  you  say  he  does,  I  will  try  to  prevent 
my  presentiments  from  being  realized,  — presentiments,  I 
mean,  that  instead  of  happiness  he  will  only  bring  despair 
upon  his  wife." 

"  Thank  you,  Jean  Oullier.  Then,  I  may  hope  —  you 
promise  me,  don't  you  ?  —  that  you  will  not  show  your 
teeth  to  my  young  friend  ?  " 

"  I  shall  keep  my  hatred  and  my  distrust  in  the  depths 
of  my  heart,  and  only  bring  them  forth  in  case  he  justifies 
them;  that  is  all  I  can  promise  you.  Do  not  ask  me  to 
like  him,    or  respect  him." 

"Unconquerable  race  !  "  muttered  Petit-Pierre,  in  a  low 
voice;  "it  is  that  which  has  made  thee  so  strong,  so 
grand." 

"Yes,"  replied  Jean  Oullier  to  this  aside,  said  loud 
enough  for  the  old  Vendéan  to  overhear  it,  —  "yes;  we  of 
this  region,  we  have  but  one  love  and  one  hatred.  Can  you 
complain  of  that  ?  " 

And  he  looked  fixedly  at  Petit-Pierre,  with  a  sort  of 
respectful   challenge. 

"No,"  said  the  latter;  "and  I  complain  of  it  the  less 
because  it  is  nearly  all  that  remains  to  Henri  V.  of  his 
heritage  of  fourteen  centuries,  —  and  it  is  powerless,  they 
say." 


54  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Who  says  so  ?  "  cried  the  Vendéan,  rising,  in  a  tone 
that  was  almost  threatening. 

"  You  will  soon  know.  We  have  talked  of  your  inter  - 
ests,  Jean  Oullier,  and  I  am  not  sorry,  for  our  talk  has 
been  a  truce  to  thoughts  that  were  sad  indeed.  Now  I 
must  return  to  my  own  affairs.     What  time  is  it  ?  " 

"Half-past  four." 

"Then  wake  up  our  friends.  Their  political  anxieties 
allow  them  to  sleep;  not  so  with  me,  for  my  politics  are 
of  one  sole  thing,  —  maternal  love.     Go,  friend  !  " 

Jean  Oullier  went  out.  Petit-Pierre,  with  bowed  head, 
walked  up  and  down  the  room;  sometimes  she  stamped 
with  impatience,  and  wrung  her  hands  in  despair.  Pres- 
enty  she  returned  to  the  hearth.  Two  big  tears  were 
rolling  down  her  cheeks,  and  her  emotion  seemed  to  choke 
her.  Then  she  fell  on  her  knees,  and  clasping  her  hands, 
prayed  to  God,  the  Giver  of  all  good,  the  Dispenser  of 
crowns,  to  enlighten  and  guide  her  resolutions  and  to  grant 
her  either  an  indomitable  power  to  fulfil  her  task  or  the 
resignation  to  endure  defeat." 


WHEN  WINE  IS  DRAWN  IT  IS  BEST  TO  DRINK  IT.         00 


VI. 


HOW    JEAN     OULLIER    PROVED    THAT    WHEN      THE     WINE     IS 
DRAWN    IT    IS    BEST    TO    DRINK    IT. 

Some  minutes  later  Gaspard,  Louis  Renaud,  and  the  Mar- 
quis de  Souday  entered  the  room.  Seeing  Petit-Pierre  on 
her  knees,  ahsorbed  in  prayer  and  meditation,  they  paused 
on  the  threshold;  and  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  who  had 
thought  proper  to  salute  the  reveille,  as  in  the  good  old 
times,  with  a  song,  stopped  short  in  his  tune  respectfully. 

But  Petit-Pierre  had  heard  the  opening  of  the  door. 
She  rose  and  addressed  those  who  stood  there. 

"Come  in,  gentlemen,  and  forgive  me  for  disturbing  you 
so  early,"  she  said;  "but  I  have  important  determinations 
to  announce  to  you." 

"On  the  contrary,  it  is  we  who  ought  to  ask  your  Royal 
Highness's  pardon  for  not  foreseeing  her  wishes  and  for 
having  slept  while  we  might  have  been  useful  to  her,"  said 
Louis  Renaud. 

"  A  truce  to  compliments,  my  friend,  "  interrupted  Petit- 
Pierre.  "That  appanage  of  royalty  is  ill-timed  now  that 
royalty  is  deserted  and  engulfed  for  the  second  time." 

"  What  can  you  mean  ?  " 

"I  mean,  my  good  and  dear  friends,"  resumed  Petit- 
Pierre  turning  her  back  to  the  fireplace,  while  the  Ven- 
déans  stood  in  a  circle  round  her,  —  "I  mean  that  I  have 
called  you  to  me  that  I  may  now  give  back  your  promises 
and  bid  you  farewell." 

"Give  back  our  promises!  bid  us  farewell  !  "  cried  her 
astonished  partisans.  "Your  Royal  Highness  is  surely 
not  thinking  of  leaving  us  ?  " 


56  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Then,  all  together,  looking  at  each  other,  they  cried 
out  :  — 

"  It  is  impossible  !  " 

"Nevertheless,  I  must." 

"Why  so?" 

"Because  I  am  advised,  — more  than  that,  I  am  adjured 
to  do  so." 

"By  whom?" 

"By  those  whose  judgment  and  intelligence  I  cannot 
doubt,  any  more  than  I  distrust  their  devotion  and  fidelity." 

"  But  for  what  reasons  ?  —  under  what  pretexts  ?  " 

"It  seems  that  the  royalist  cause  is  despaired  of  even 
in  La  Vendee;  the  white  banner  is  a  rag  which  France 
repudiates.  I  am  told  there  are  not  in  Paris  twelve 
hundred  men  who,  for  a  few  francs,  would  begin  a  riot  in 
the  streets;  that  it  is  false  to  say  that  we  have  sympa- 
thizers in  the  army,  false  that  certain  of  the  government 
are  true  to  us,  false  that  the  Bocage  is  ready  to  rise  as 
one  man  to  defend  the  rights  of  Henri  V.  —  " 

"But,"  interrupted  the  noble  Vendéan  who  had  for  the 
time  changed  a  name  illustrious  in  the  great  war  for  that 
of  Gaspard,  and  who  seemed  incapable  of  longer  control- 
ling himself,  "who  gives  such  advice?  Who  speaks  of  La 
Vendée  with  such  assurance  ?  Who  measures  our  devo- 
tion, and  says,  'Thus  far  and  no  farther  shall  it  go  '  ?  " 

"Various  royalist  committees  that  I  need  not  name  to 
you,  but  whose  opinion  we  must  regard." 

"  Royalist  committees  !  "  cried  the  Marquis  de  Souday. 
Ha  !  parbleu  !  I  know  them  ;  and  if  Madame  will  believe 
me,  we  had  better  treat  their  advice  as  the  late  Marquis 
de  Charette  treated  the  advice  of  the  royalist  committees 
of  his  day." 

"  How  was  that,  my  brave  Souday  ?  "  said  Petit-Pierre. 

"The  respect  I  have  for  your  Royal  Highness,"  replied 
the  marquis,  with  magnificent  self-possession,  "will  not, 
unfortunately,  allow  of  my  specifying  further." 

Petit-Pierre  could  not  help  smiling. 


WHEN  WINE  IS  DRAWN  IT  IS  BEST  TO  DKINK  IT.         57 

"All!"  she  said;  "we  no  longer  live  in  the  good  old 
times,  my  poor  marquis.  Monsieur  de  Charette  was  an 
autocratic  sovereign  in  his  own  camp,  and  the  Regent 
Marie-Caroline  will  never  be  anything  but  a  very  consti- 
tutional regent.  The  proposed  uprising  can  succeed  only 
on  condition  of  complete  agreement  among  all  those  who 
desire  its  success.  Now,  I  ask  you,  does  that  complete 
agreement  exist  when,  on  the  eve  of  the  uprising,  notice  is 
given  to  the  general  that  three  fourths  of  those  on  whom 
he  counted  would  not  take  part  in  it  ?  " 

"What  matter  for  that  ?  "  cried  the  Marquis  de  Souday; 
"the  fewer  we  are  at  the  rendezvous,  the  greater  the  glory 
to  those  who  appear." 

"  Madame,  "  said  Gaspard,  gravely,  "  they  went  to  you, 
and  they  said  to  you,  —  when  perhaps  you  had  no  thought 
of  re-entering  France, — 'The  men  who  deposed  King- 
Charles  X.are  held  at  arm's  length  by  the  present  gov- 
ernment and  reduced  to  impotence;  the  ministry  is  so 
composed  that  you  will  find  few  if  any  changes  necessary 
to  make  there;  the  clergy,  a  stationary  and  immovable 
power,  will  lend  its  whole  influence  to  the  re-establish- 
ment of  the  legitimate  royalty  by  divine  right;  the  courts 
are  still  administered  by  men  who  owe  their  all  to  the 
Restoration;  the  army,  fundamentally  obedient,  is  under 
the  orders  of  a  leader  who  has  said  that  in  public  policy 
there  should  be  more  than  one  flag;  the  people,  made 
sovereign  in  1830,  has  fallen  under  the  yoke  of  the  most 
idiotic  and  most  inept  of  aristocracies.  Come,  then,' 
they  said,  'your  entry  into  France  will  be  another  return 
from  Elba.  The  population  will  everywhere  crowd  around 
you  to  hail  the  last  scion  of  our  kings  whom  the  nation 
desires  to  proclaim  !  '  On  the  faith  of  these  words  you 
have  come  to  us,  Madame;  and  at  your  coming  we  have 
risen  to  arms.  I  hold  it,  therefore,  an  error  for  our  cause 
and  a  shame  for  ourselves  that  this  retreat,  which  would 
impeach  your  own  political  sagacit}'-  and  prove  our  per- 
sonal powerlessness,  has  been  demanded  of  you." 


58  THE    LAST    VENDEE. 

"Yes,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  who  by  a  singular  turn  of  fate 
found  herself  called  upon  to  defend  a  course  which  was 
breaking  her  heart,  ■ — "yes;  all  you  say  is  true.  I  was 
promised  all  that;  but  it  is  neither  your  fault  nor  mine, 
my  brave,  true  friends,  if  fools  have  taken  baseless  hopes 
for  realities.  Impartial  history  will  say  that  when  1  was 
accused  of  being  a  faithless  mother  (and  I  have  been  so 
accused)  I  answered,  as  I  was  bound  to  answer,  'Here  I 
am,  ready  to  make  all  sacrifices  !  '  History  will  also  say 
of  you,  my  loyal  friends,  that  the  more  my  cause  seemed 
hopeless  and  abandoned  the  less  you  hesitated  in  your 
devotion  to  it.  But  it  is  a  matter  of  honor  with  me  not  to 
put  that  devotion  to  the  proof  uselessly.  Let  us  talk 
plainly,  friends.  Let  us  come  down  to  figures;  they  are 
practical.  How  many  men  do  you  think  we  can  muster  at 
this  moment  ?  " 

"Ten  thousand  at  the  first  signal." 

"Alas!"  said  Petit-Pierre;  "that  is  many,  but  not 
enough.  Louis-Philippe  has  at  least  four  hundred  and 
eighty  thousand  unemployed  troops,  not  to  speak  of  the 
National  Guard." 

"But  think  of  the  defections  of  the  officers  who  will 
resign,"  said  the  marquis. 

"Well,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  addressing  Gaspard,  "I  place 
my  destiny  and  that  of  my  son  in  your  hands.  Tell  me, 
assure  me,  on  your  honor  as  a  gentleman,  that  we  have 
two  chances  in  ten  of  success,  and  instead  of  ordering  you 
to  lay  down  your  arms,  I  will  stay  among  you  to  share  your 
perils  and  your  fate." 

At  this  direct  appeal,  not  to  his  feelings  but  to  his  con- 
victions, Gaspard  bent  his  head  and  made  no  answer. 

"You  see,"  resumed  Petit-Pierre,  "that  your  judgment 
and  your  heart  are  not  in  unison.  It  would  be  a  crime  in 
me  to  use  a  chivalry  which  common-sense  condemns.  Let 
us,  therefore,  not  discuss  that  which  has  been  decided,  — 
wisely  decided,  perhaps.  Let  us  rather  pray  God  to  send 
me  back   to   you  in  better   times  and  under   more   favor- 


WHEN  WINK  IS  DEAWN  IT  IS  BEST  TO  DRINK  IT.         59 

able  auspices.     Meantime,  let  us  now  think  only  of  my 
departure." 

No  doubt  the  gentlemen  present  felt  the  necessity  of 
this  resolution;  little  as  it  agreed  with  their  feelings. 
Believing  that  the  duchess  was  fully  determined  on  it,  they 
answered  nothing  and  only  turned  away  to  hide  their  tears. 
The  Marquis  de  Souday  walked  about  the  room  with  an 
impatience  he  did  not  attempt  to  disguise. 

"Yes, "said  Petit-Pierre,  bitterly,  after  a  long  silence,  — ■ 
"yes,  some  have  said,  like  Pilate,  'I  wash  my  hands  of  it,' 
and  my  heart,  so  strong  in  danger,  so  strong  to  meet  death, 
has  yielded;  for  it  cannot  face  in  cold  blood  the  respon- 
sibility of  failure  and  the  useless  shedding  of  blood. 
Others  —  " 

"Blood  that  flows  for  the  faith  is  never  uselessly  shed," 
Scud  a  voice  from  the  chimney-corner.  "God  himself  lias 
said  it,  and,  humble  as  I  am,  I  dare  to  repeat  the  words  of 
God.  Every  man  who  believes  and  dies  for  his  belief  is 
a  martyr;  his  blood  enriches  the  earth  and  hastens  the 
harvest." 

"Who  said  that  ?"  asked  Petit-Perre,  eagerly,  rising  on 
the  tips  of  her  toes. 

"I,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  simply,  getting  up  from  the 
stool  on  which  he  was  sitting,  and  entering  the  circle  of 
nobles  and  leaders. 

"You,  my  brave  fellow!"  cried  Petit-Pierre,  delighted 
to  find  a  reinforcement  at  the  very  moment  she  seemed  to 
be  abandoned  by  all.  "Then  you  don't  agree  with  the 
Parisian  gentlemen.  Come  here,  and  speak  your  mind. 
In  these  days  Jacques  Bonhomme  is  never  out  of  place, 
even  at  a  royal  council." 

"  I  am  so  little  of  the  opinion  that  you  ought  to  leave 
France,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  "that  if  I  had  the  honor  to  be 
a  gentleman,  like  those  present,  I  should  lock  the  door 
and  bar  your  way  and  say,  'You  shall  not  leave  us  !  '  " 

"But  your  reasons  ?  I  am  eager  to  hear  them.  Speak, 
speak,  my  Jean  !  " 


60  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

"My  reasons  ?  —  my  reasons  are  that  you  are  our  flag; 
and  so  long  as  one  of  your  soldiers  is  left  standing,  be  he 
the  humblest  of  your  army,  he  should  bear  it  aloft  and 
steady  until  death  makes  it  his  winding-sheet." 

"Go  on,  go  on,  Jean  Oullier  !     You  speak  well." 

"  My  reasons  ?  —  one  is  that  you  are  the  first  of  your 
race  who  have  come  to  fight  with  those  who  fight  for  its 
cause,  and  it  would  be  a  shameful  thing  to  let  you  go  with- 
out a  sword  being  drawn  from  its  scabbard." 

"  Go  on,  go  on,  Jacques  Bonhomme  !  "  cried  Petit-Pierre, 
striking  her  hands  together. 

"  But,"  interrupted  Louis  Kenaud,  alarmed  at  the  atten- 
tion the  duchess  gave  to  Jean  Oullier,  "the  withdrawals 
we  have  just  heard  of  deprive  the  movement  of  all  chance 
of  success;  it  will  be  nothing  more  than  a  mere  skirmish." 

"No,  no;  that  man  is  right  !  "  cried  Gaspard,  who  had 
yielded  with  great  reluctance  to  Petit-Pierre's  arguments. 
"An  attempt,  if  only  a  skirmish,  is  better  than  the  non- 
existence into  which  we  should  drop.  A  skirmish  is  a 
date,  a  fact  ;  it  will  stand  in  history,  and  the  day  will 
come  when  the  people  will  forget  all  except  the  courage 
of  those  who  led  it.  If  it  does  not  lead  to  the  recovery  of 
the  throne  it  will  at  least  leave  traces  on  the  memory  of 
nations.  Who  would  remember  the  name  of  Charles 
Edward  were  it  not  for  the  skirmishes  of  Preston-Pans 
and  Culloden?  Ah,  Madame,  I  long  to  do  as  this  brave 
peasant  advises  !  " 

"And  you  would  be  all  the  more  right,  Monsieur  le 
comte,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  with  an  assurance  which  showed 
that  these  questions,  apparently  above  his  level,  were 
familiar  to  him,  —  "you  would  be  all  the  more  right 
because  the  principal  object  of  her  Royal  Highness,  that 
to  which  she  is  even  willing  to  sacrifice  the  monarchy 
confided  to  her  regency,  —  I  mean  the  welfare  of  the  peo- 
ple, —  will  otherwise  fail." 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?  "  asked  Petit-Pierre. 

"The  moment  Madame  withdraws  and  the  government 


WHEN  WINE  IS  DKAWN  IT  IS  BEST  TO  DRINK  IT.         61 

knows  she  is  safely  out  of  the  country,  persecutions  will 
begin;  and  they  will  be  the  more  keen,  the  more  violent, 
because  we  shall  have  shown  ourselves  daunted.  You  are 
rich,  you  gentlemen,  —  you  can  escape  by  flight,  you  can 
have  vessels  to  wait  for  you  at  the  mouths  of  the  Loire 
and  the  Charente.  Your  country  is  everywhere,  in  many 
lands.  But  as  for  us  poor  peasants,  we  are  tethered  like 
the  goats  to  the  soil  that  feeds  us  ;  we  would  rather  face 
death  than  exile." 

"And  your  conclusion  is,  my  brave  Jean  Oullier  —  " 

"My  conclusion  is,  Monsieur  Petit-Pierre,"  said  the 
Vendéan,  "that  when  the  wine  is  drawn  it  is  best  to  drink 
it;  we  have  taken  arms,  and  having  taken  them,  we  ought 
to  fight  without  delay." 

"Let  us  fight!"  cried  Petit-Pierre,  enthusiastically. 
"The  voice  of  the  people  is  the  voice  of  God.  I  have 
faith  in  that  of  Jean  Oullier." 

"  Let  us  fight  !  "  echoed  the  marquis. 

"  Let  us  fight  !  "  said  Louis  Eenaud. 

"Well  then,  what  day  shall  we  decide  on  for  the  first 
outbreak  ?"  asked  Petit-Pierre. 

"Why,"  said  Gaspard,  "I  thought  it  was  decided  for 
the  24th!" 

"Yes;  but  these  gentlemen  in  Paris  have  countermanded 
the  order." 

"  Without  informing  you  ?  "  cried  the  marquis.  "Don't 
they  know  that  men  are  shot  for  less  than  that  ?  " 

"I  forgave  them,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  stretching  out  her 
hand.  "Besides,  those  who  did  it  are  civilians,  not 
soldiers." 

"  This  counter-order  and  delay  are  most  unfortunate,  " 
said  Gaspard,  in  a  low  tone;  "had  I  known  of  it  —  " 

"  What  ?  "  asked  Petit-Pierre. 

"I  might  not  have  agreed  in  the  opinion  of  that  peasant." 

"Oh,  nonsense!"  cried  Petit-Pierre;  "you  heard  what 
he  said,  dear  Gaspard,  —  when  the  wine  is  drawn  it  is  best 
to  drink  it.     Let  us  drink  it  gayly,  gentlemen,  even  though 


62  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

it  be  that  with  which  the  lord  of  Beaumanoir  refreshed 
himself  at  the  fight  of  the  gallant  Thirty.  Come,  Marquis 
cle  Souday,  find  me  pen,  ink,  and  paper  in  this  farmhouse 
where  your  future  son-in-law  has  given  me  hospitality." 

The  marquis  hastened  to  search  for  what  Petit-Pierre 
wanted;  and  while  opening  drawers  and  closets  and  rum- 
maging the  clothes  and  linen  of  the  farmer,  he  contrived 
to  wring  Jean  Oullier's  hand  aud  whisper  :  — 

"You  talked  gold,  my  brave  gars;  never  one  of  your 
tally-hos  rejoiced  my  heart  like  that  "boot-and-saddle  " 
you've  just  rung  out." 

Then,  having  found  what  he  wanted  he  carried  it  to 
Petit-Pierre.  The  latter  dipped  the  pen  into  the  ink- 
bottle,  and  in  her  firm,  bold,  large  handwriting,  she  wrote 
as  follows  :  — 

My  dear  Maréchal,  —  I  remain  among  you.  Be  so  good  as 
to  come  to  me. 

I  remain,  inasmuch  as  my  presence  has  already  compromised 
many  of  my  faithful  followers,  and  it  would  be  cowardice  on  my 
part  to  abandon  them.  Besides,  I  hope,  in  spite  of  this  unfor- 
tunate counter-order,  that  God  will  grant  us  victory. 

Farewell,  Monsieur  le  maréchal;  do  not  give  in  your  resigna- 
tion, for  Petit-Pierre  will  not  give  in  hers. 

Petit-Pierre. 

"And  now,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  folding  the  letter,  "what 
day  shall  we  fix  for  the  uprising  ?  " 

"Thursday,  May  31,"  said  the  marquis,  thinking  that 
the  nearest  time  was  the  best,  "  if  that  is  satisfactory  to 
you." 

"No,"  said  Gaspard;  "excuse  me,  Monsieur  le  marquis, 
"but  it  seems  to  me  best  to  choose  the  night  of  Sunday, 
the  3d  to  the  4th  of  June.  On  Sunday,  after  high  mass, 
the  peasants  of  all  the  parishes  assemble  in  the  porches  of 
their  different  churches,  and  the  captains  will  have  an 
opportunity  to  communicate  the  order  without  exciting 
suspicion." 

"Your  knowledge  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  this 


WHEN   WINK  IS  DRAWN  IT  IS  BEST  TO  DRINK  IT.         63 

region  is  a  great  help,  my  friend,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  "and 
I  agree  to  your  advice.  Let  the  date  be  therefore  the 
night  of  the  3d  to  the  4th  of  June." 

Whereupon,  she  began  at  once  to  write  the  following 
order  :  — 

Having  resolved  not  to  leave  the.  provinces  of  the  West,  but  to 
confide  myself  to  their  fidelity,  —  a  fidelity  so  often  proved,  —  1  rely 
upon  you,  monsieur,  to  take  all  necessary  measures  in  your  division 
for  the  call  to  arms  which  is  appointed  to  take  place  during  the 
night  of  the  3d  and  4th  of  June. 

I  summon  to  my  side  all  faithful  hearts.  God  will  help  us  to 
save  the  country  ;  no  danger,  no  fatigue,  shall  discourage  me.  I 
shall  be  present  at  the  first  engagement. 

To  this  document  Petit-Pierre  signed  her  name  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

Marie-Cakoline, 
Regent  of  France. 

"There,  the  die  is  cast!"  cried  Petit-Pierre.  "Now  it 
remains  to  conquer  or  die." 

"And  now,"  added  the  marquis,  "if  twenty  counter- 
orders  are  sent  to  me,  I  '11  ring  that  tocsin  on  the  4th  of 
June,  and  then  —  yes,  damn  it,  after  us  the  deluge  !  " 

"One  thing  is  absolutely  necessary,"  said  Petit-Pierre, 
showing  her  order.  "This  order  must  immediately  and 
infallibly  reach  the  various  division  commanders  so  as  to 
neutralize  the  bad  effects  of  the  manifesto  sent  from 
Nantes." 

"Alas  !  "  said  Gaspard;  "God  grant  that  luckless 
counter-order  may  reach  the  country  districts  in  time  to 
paralyze  the  first  movement  and  yet  leave  vigor  for  the 
second.  I  fear  the  reverse;  I  am  terribly  afraid  that 
many  of  our  brave  fellows  will  be  the  victims  of  their 
courage  and  their  isolation." 

"That  is  why  I  think  we  ought  not  to  lose  a  moment, 
messieurs,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  "but  use  our  legs  while 
waiting   to   use    our   arms.      You,    Gaspard,    inform   the 


64  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

divisions  of  Upper  and  Lower  Poitou.  Monsieur  le  Mar- 
quis de  Souday  will  do  the  same  in  the  Retz  and  Mauges 
regions.  You,  my  dear  Louis  Renaud,  must  explain  it  all 
to  your  Bretons.  But  who  will  undertake  to  carry  my 
despatch  to  the  maréchal  ?  He  is  at  Nantes;  and  your 
faces  are  far  too  well  known  there  to  allow  me  to  send  any 
of  you  on  this  errand." 

"I  will  go,"  said  Bertha,  who  had  heard,  in  the  alcove 
where  she  was  resting  with  her  sister,  the  sound  of  voices, 
and  had  risen  to  share  in  the  discussion.  "  That  is  one  of 
my  functions  as  aide-de-camp." 

"Certainly  it  is;  but  your  dress,  my  dear  child,"  replied 
Petit-Pierre,  "will  not  meet  the  approval  of  the  Nantes 
people,  charming  as  I  myself  think  it." 

"Therefore  my  sister  will  not  go  to  Nantes,  Madame," 
said  Mary,  coming  forward;  "but  I  will,  if  you  permit  me. 
I  can  wear  the  dress  of  a  peasant-woman,  and  leave  your 
Royal  Highness  her  first  aide-de-camp." 

Bertha  wished  to  insist;  but  Petit-Pierre,  whispering  in 
her  ear,  said  :  — 

"  Stay,  my  dear  Bertha  ;  I  have  something  to  say  to  you 
about  Baron  Michel.  We  will  plan  a  project  he  will  not 
oppose,  I  am  very  sure." 

Bertha  blushed,  lowered  her  head,  and  left  her  sister  to 
take  possession  of  the  letter  and  convey  it  to  Nantes. 


WHY   MICHEL   DECIDED   TO   GO   TO   NANTES.  05 


VII. 


HEREIN    IS    EXPLAINED    HOW    AND    WHY    BARON    MICHEL 
DECIDED   TO    GO    TO    NANTES. 

We  have  mentioned  already,  incidentally,  that  Michel  had 
left  the  farmhouse;  but  we  did  not  dwell  sufficiently  on 
this  caper,  nor  on  the  circumstances  that  accompanied  it. 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life  Michel  acted  slyly  and  even 
showed  duplicity.  Under  the  shock  of  emotion  produced 
by  Petit-Pierre's  speech  to  the  marquis,  and  by  the  vanish- 
ing (through  Mary's  unexpected  declaration)  of  all  the 
hopes  he  had  been  cherishing  so  complacently,  he  was 
utterly  crushed  down  and  annihilated.  Fully  aware  that 
the  fancy  Bertha  had  so  liberally  shown  for  him  separated 
him  from  her  sister  far  more  than  any  aversion  on  the 
hitter's  part,  he  reproached  himself  for  having  encouraged 
that  fancy  by  his  silence  and  his  foolish  timidity.  But 
there  was  no  use  scolding  himself  now;  he  knew  that  in 
the  depths  of  his  soul  he  had  not  the  necessary  strength  to 
cut  short  a  misunderstanding  which  fatally  interfered 
with  an  affection  that  was  dearer  to  him  than  life  itself, 
There  was  not  in  bis  nature  resolution  enough  to  bring  the 
matter  to  a  frank,  categorical  explanation  ;  he  felt  it  to  be 
impossible  to  say  to  that  handsome  girl,  to  whom  he  had 
perhaps  owed  his  life  a  few  hours  earlier,  "Mademoiselle, 
it  is  not  you  whom  I  love." 

During  all  that  evening,  although  occasions  to  open  his 
heart  honestly  to  Bertha  were  not  lacking,  —  for  she,  very 
uneasy  about  a  wound  which  if  given  to  herself  she  would 
hardly  have  noticed,  persisted  in  dressing  it,  —  Michel 
remained  passive  in  a  situation   the  difficulties  of  which 

VOL.   II.  —  5 


66  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

increased  every  moment.  He  tried  to  speak  to  Mary  ;  but 
Mary  took  as  much  pains  to  prevent  this  as  he  did  to 
accomplish  it,  and  he  renounced  the  idea,  which  he 
indulged  for  a  moment,  of  making  her  his  intermediary. 
Besides,  those  fatal  words,  'I  do  not  love  you,'  sounded 
in  his  ears  like  a  funeral  knell. 

He  profited  by  a  moment  when  no  one,  not  even  Bertha, 
had  an  eye  upon  him  to  retire,  or  rather  to  flee  to  his  own 
room.  There  he  flung  himself  on  the  straw  bed  which 
Bertha  with  her  own  white  hands  had  prepared  for  him; 
but  he  soon  got  up,  his  head  on  fire,  his  heart  more  and 
more  convulsed,  to  bathe  his  burning  face  in  water  and 
bind  a  wet  towel  round  his  head.  This  done,  he  profited 
by  his  sleeplessness  to  search  for  some  method  of  release. 

After  an  actual  travail  of  imagination  which  lasted 
nearly  an  hour  an  idea  came  to  him.  It  was  this,  —  that 
he  might  have  courage  to  write  what  he  could  not  say. 
This,  Michel  felt,  was  the  highest  point  his  strength  of 
character  could  reach.  But  in  order  to  get  any  good  out 
of  such  a  letter  he  felt  he  could  not  be  present  in  the  house 
when  Bertha  received  it  and  read  the  revelation  of  his 
secret  thoughts;  for  not  only  do  timid  persons  dread  being- 
made  to  suffer,  but  they  also  dread  making  others  suffer. 

The  result  of  Michel's  reflections  was  that  he  would 
leave  the  farmhouse;  but  not  for  long,  be  it  under- 
stood; for  he  intended,  as  soon  as  the  position  was 
plainly  defined  and  the  ground  cleared,  to  return  and 
take  his  place  beside  the  sister  he  really  loved.  The 
Marquis  de  Souday  would  surely  not  refuse  him  the  hand 
of  Mary,  since  he  had  given  him  that  of  Bertha,  as  soon  as 
he  was  made  aware  that  it  was  Mary  and  not  Bertha  whom 
he  loved.  The  father  could  have  no  possible  reason  for 
refusal. 

Much  encouraged  by  this  prospect,  Michel  rose  and  with 
profound  ingratitude  cast  off  the  towel  to  which  he  owed 
(thanks  to  the  quiet  its  cool  refreshment  had  restored  to  his 
brain),  the  good  idea  he  was  now  intent  on  putting  into 


WHY   MICHEL    DECIDED   TO   GO   TO   NANTES.  G7 

execution.  He  went  down  to  the  yard  of  the  farmhouse 
and  began  to  lift  the  bars  at  the  stable  entrance.  But  jnst 
as  he  had  lifted  and  pushed  back  the  first  of  these  bars 
and  was  beginning  on  the  second,  he  saw,  under  a  shed,  a 
bale  of  straw,  and  out  of  that  bale  of  straw  came  a  head 
which  he  recognized  as  that  of  Jean  Oullier. 

"The  devil  !  "  said  the  latter  in  his  gruffest  tone;  "you 
are  pretty  early  this  morning,  Monsieur  Michel." 

At  that  instant  two  o'clock  rang  from  the  steeple  of  a 
neighboring  village. 

"  Have  you  any  errand  to  do  ?  "  asked  Jean  Oullier. 

"No,"  replied  the  baron,  for  he  fancied  that  the  Ven- 
déan's  eye  could  penetrate  into  the  deepest  recesses  of  his 
soul,  — "no;  but  I  have  a  dreadful  headache,  and  I  thought 
the  night  air  might  still  it." 

"I  warn  you  that  we  have  sentinels  all  around  us,  and  if 
you  have  not  the  password  you  may  be  roughly  used." 

"I  !  " 

"  Damn  it  !  you  as  well  as  others.  Ten  steps  from  here 
you  '11  find  out  you  are  not  the  master  of  this  house." 

"But  that  password,  — do  you  know  it,  Monsieur 
Jean  ?  " 

"Of  course." 

"Then  tell  me." 

Jean  Oullier  shook  his  head. 

"That 's  the  Marquis  de  Souday's  affair.  Go  up  to  his 
room;  tell  him  you  want  to  go  away,  and  in  order  to  do 
so  you  must  have  the  password.  He  '11  give  it  to  you,  — 
that  is,  if  he  thinks  proper  to  do  so." 

Michel  took  good  care  to  do  nothing  of  the  kind,  and 
he  remained  standing  where  he  was,  with  his  hand  on  the 
bar.  As  for  Jean  Oullier,  he  again  buried  himself  in 
the  straw. 

After  a  while  Michel,  wholly  discomfited,  went  and  sat 
down  on  an  overturned  trough,  which  formed  a  kind  of 
seat  at  the  inner  gate  of  the  farmyard.  There  he  had 
leisure  to  continue  his  meditations;  but  although  the  pile 


68  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

of  straw  did  not  move  again,  Michel  fancied  that  an  aper- 
ture was  made  in  its  thickest  part,  and  that  in  the  depths 
of  that  cavity  he  could  see  something  glitter,  which  was, 
doubtless,  the  eye  of  Jean  Oullier.  And  alas  !  he  knew 
there  was  no  chance  of  eluding  the  eye  of  that  watch-dog. 

Luckily,  as  we  have  said,  meditation  was  on  this  occa- 
sion singularly  useful  to  the  young  baron.  The  question 
now  was  how  to  find  a  pretext  to  get  away  from  Banlœuvre 
in  a  proper  manner.  Michel  was  still  seeking  that  pretext 
when  the  first  rays  of  the  rising  sun  began  to  light  up  the 
horizon  and  gild  the  thatch  of  the  cottage-roof  and  color 
with  its  opal  tints  the  panes  of  the  narrow  windows. 

Little  by  little  life  was  renewed  around  Michel.  The 
cattle  lowed  for  their  food;  the  sheep,  impatient  for  the 
fields,  bleated  and  poked  their  gray-white  muzzles  through 
the  bars  of  their  pen;  the  hens  fluttered  down  from  their 
perches  and  stretched  their  wings  and  clucked  on  the 
manure  heap;  the  pigeons  came  out  of  the  cote  and  flew  to 
the  roof,  to  coo  their  hymn  of  love  eternal;  while  the 
ducks,  more  prosaic,  stood  in  a  long  line  by  the  farmyard 
gate  and  filled  the  air  with  discordant  noises,  —  noises 
which,  in  all  probability,  expressed  their  surprise  at  find- 
ing that  gate  closed  when  they  were  in  such  a  hurry  to  go 
and  dabble  in  the  pond. 

At  the  sound  of  these  various  noises,  forming  the  matu- 
tinal concert  of  a  well-managed  farm,  a  window  just  above 
the  bench  on  which  Michel  was  sitting  opened  softly,  and 
J'etit-Pierre's  head  appeared  within  it.  She  did  not,  how- 
ever, see  Michel;  her  eyes  were  turned  to  heaven,  and  she 
seemed  entirely  absorbed  either  by  inward  thought  or  by 
the  glorious  spectacle  the  dawn  presented  to  her.  Any 
eye  —  above  all,  that  of  a  princess  unaccustomed  to  watch 
the  rising  of  the  sun  —  would  have  been  dazzled  by  the  jets 
of  flame  which  the  king  of  day  was  sending  along  the 
plain,  where  they  sparkled  like  thousands  of  precious 
stones  upon  the  wet  and  quivering  leaves  of  the  forest-trees 
and  the  dewy  herbage  of  the  fields;  presently  an  invisi- 


WHY   MICHEL   DECIDED   TO   GO   TO   NANTES.  69 

ble  hand  softly  raised  the  veil  of  vapor  from  the  valley, 
disclosing,  one  by  one,  like  a  modest  virgin,  its  beauty, 
grace,  and  splendor. 

Petit-Pierre  gave  herself  up  to  the  contemplation  of  this 
scene  for  several  minutes.  Then,  resting  her  head  on  her 
hand,  she  murmured  sadly  :  — 

"Alas  !  bare  as  this  poor  cottage  is,  those  who  live  in  it 
are  more  fortunate  than  I." 

These  words  struck  the  young  baron's  brain  like  a  magic 
wand  and  elicited  the  idea,  or  rather  the  pretext,  he  had 
been  vainly  searching  for  the  last  two  hours.  Ho  kept 
quite  still  against  the  wall,  to  which  he  had  clung  when 
the  window  opened,  and  he  did  not  move  until  a  sound 
told  him  the  window  was  shut  and  he  could  leave  his  sta- 
tion without  being  seen. 

He  went  straight  to  the  shed. 

"Monsieur,"  he  said  to  Jean  Oullier,  "Petit-Pierre 
opened  his  window  —  " 

"So  I  saw,"  said  the  Vendéan. 

"  He  spoke  ;  did  you  hear  what  he  said  ?  " 

"It  did  not  concern  me,  and  therefore  I  did  not  listen." 

"Being  nearer  to  him,  I  heard  what  he  said,  without 
intending  to  listen." 

"Well?" 

"Well,  our  guest  thinks  this  house  unpleasant  and 
inconvenient;  it  lacks  many  things  which  are  a  necessity 
to  a  person  of  his  aristocratic  habits.  Couldn't  you  —  I 
giving  you  the  money,  of  course  —  could  n't  you  procure 
some  of  these  necessary  things  ?  " 

"Where,  I  should  like  to  know  ?" 

"  Why,  in  the  nearest  town  or  village,  —  Lege  or 
Machecoul.  " 

Jean  Oullier  shook  his  head. 

"Impossible,"  he  said. 

"Why  so  ?  "  asked  Michel. 

"  Because  if  I  were  to  buy  articles  of  luxury  just  now 
in  either  of  those  places,  where  not  a  gesture  of  certain 


70  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

persons  is  unobserved,  I  should  awaken  dangerous  sus- 
picion." 

"  Could  n't  you  go  as  far  as  Nantes  ?  " 

"No,"  said  Jean  Otillier,  curtly;  "the  lesson  I  got  at 
Montaigu  has  taught  me  prudence,  and  I  shall  not  leave 
my  post.  But,"  he  continued,  in  a  slightly  ironical  tone, 
"you  who  want  the  fresh  air  to  cure  your  headache,  — why 
don't  you  go  to  Nantes  ?  " 

Seeing  his  scheme  thus  crowned  with  success,  Michel 
blushed  to  the  whites  of  his  eyes;  and  yet  he  trembled, 
now  that  it  came  to  putting  it  into  execution. 

"Perhaps  you  are  right,"  he  stammered;  "but  I  am 
afraid,  too." 

"Pooh!  a  brave  man  like  you  ought  to  have  no  fear," 
said  Jean  Oullier,  emerging  from  the  straw,  and  shaking 
it  off  as  he  walked  toward  the  gate,  leaving  the  young  man 
time  to  reflect. 

"But  —  "  said  Michel. 

"  What  ?  "  asked  Jean  Oullier,  impatiently. 

"Will  you  undertake  to  explain  the  reasons  of  my 
departure  to  Monsieur  le  marquis,  and  present  my  excuses 
to  —  " 

"Mademoiselle  Bertha?"  said  Jean  Oullier,  sarcasti- 
cally.    "Yes;    don't  trouble  yourself." 

"  I  shall  be  back  to-morrow,  "  said  Michel,  as  he  passed 
through  the  gate. 

"Don't  hurry;  take  your  time,  Monsieur  le  baron.  Tf 
not  to-morrow,  the  next  day  will  do."  So  saying,  he 
closed  the  heavj*-  gate  behind  the  young  man. 

The  sound  of  the  gate  barricaded  against  him  gave  a 
painful  shock  to  Michel's  heart.  At  that  moment  he 
thought  less  of  the  difficulties  he  was  seeking  to  escape 
than  of  his  total  separation  from  the  one  he  loved.  Tt 
seemed  to  him  that  the  worm-eaten  gate  was  an  iron  bar- 
rier which  he  should  ever  find  in  future  between  the  gentle 
form  of  Mary  and  himself. 

So,  instead  of  starting  on  his  way,  he  again  sat  down, 


WHY   MICHEL   DECIDED   TO   GO   TO   NANTES.  71 

this  time  by  the  roadside,  and  wept.  There  was  a  moment 
when,  if  he  had  not  feared  Jean  Oullier's  sarcasms  (inex- 
perienced as  he  was,  he  could  not  be  ignorant  of  the  man's 
malevolence),  he  would  have  rapped  on  the  gate  and  asked 
for  re-admittance  to  see  once  more  his  tender  Mary;  but 
an  inward  impulse  of  —  we  were  about  to  say  false  shame; 
let  us  rather  say  —  true  shame  withheld  him,  and  he  at 
last  departed,  without  very  well  knowing  whither  he 
went. 

He  was,  however,  on  the  road  to  Lege,  and  before  long 
the  sound  of  wheels  made  him  turn  his  head.  He  then 
saw  the  diligence  which  ran  from  Sables-d'Olonne  to 
Nantes  coming  toward  him.  Michel  felt  that  his  strength, 
lessened  by  the  loss  of  blood,  though  his  wound  was  slight, 
would  not  enable  him  to  walk  much  farther.  The  sight  of 
the  vehicle  brought  him  to  a  resolution.  He  stopped  it, 
got  into  one  of  the  compartments,  and  reached  Nantes  a 
few  hours  later. 

But  when  he  got  there  all  the  melancholy  of  his  situa- 
tion came  over  him.  Habituated  from  childhood  to  live 
the  life  of  others,  to  obey  a  will  that  was  not  his  own,  and 
still  maintained  in  that  mental  servitude  by  the  very  sub- 
stitution that  had  just  taken  place  within  him,  —  having, 
as  we  may  say,  changed  masters  by  abandoning  his  mother 
to  follow  the  woman  whom  he  loved,  —  liberty  was  to  him 
so  novel  that  he  did  not  feel  its  charm,  whereas  his  soli- 
tude and  isolation  were  unbearable  to  him. 

For  hearts  that  are  deeply  wounded  there  is  no  such 
cruel  solitude  as  that  of  a  city;  and  the  larger  and  more 
populous  it  is,  the  greater  the  solitude.  Isolation  in  the 
midst  of  a  crowd,  the  nearness  of  the  joy  and  the  heedless- 
ness of  those  they  meet,  contrasting  with  the  sadness  and 
anxiety  in  their  own  minds,  become  unendurable  to  them. 
So  it  was  now  with  Michel.  Finding  himself,  almost 
without  the  action  of  his  own  will,  on  the  road  to  Nantes, 
he  hoped  to  find  there  some  distraction  to  his  anxious  grief; 
on  the  contrary,  he  found  it  far  more  keen  and  agonizing, 


72  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Mary's  image  followed  him;  he  seemed  to  see  her  in  every 
woman  he  met,  and  his  heart  dissolved  into  bitter  regrets 
and  impotent  desires. 

In  this  condition  of  mind  he  presently  turned  back  to 
the  inn  at  which  the  coach  had  stopped,  where  he  shut  him- 
self up  in  a  room  and  again  began  to  weep.  He  thought 
of  returning  instantly  to  Banlœuvre,  flinging  himself  at 
Petit-Pierre's  feet,  and  asking  her  to  be  his  mediator 
between  the  two  sisters.  He  blamed  himself  for  not  hav- 
ing done  so  that  morning,  and  for  weakly  yielding  to  the 
fear  of  wounding  Bertha's  pride. 

This  current  of  ideas  brought  him  naturally  back  to  the 
object,  or  rather  the  pretext,  of  his  journey,  —  that  is,  the 
articles  of  luxury  he  had  proposed  to  purchase.  Those 
purchases  once  made,  —  to  serve  as  a  legitimate  reason  for 
his  absence,  —  he  would  write  the  terrible  letter  which 
was,  in  truth,  the  one  only  and  true  cause  of  his  flight 
to  Nantes. 

Presently  he  decided  that  he  had  better  begin  by  writ- 
ing that  letter.  This  resolution  taken,  he  did  not  lose  a 
moment  in  carrying  it  out.  He  seated  himself  at  the  table 
and  composed  the  following  letter,  on  which  fell  as  many 
tears  from  his  eyes  as  words  from  his  pen  :  — 

Mademoiselle,  —  I  ought  to  be  the  happiest  of  men,  and  yet 
my  heart  is  broken,  and  I  ask  myself  whether  death  were  not  more 
tolerable  than  the  suffering  I  endure. 

What  will  you  think  of  me,  what  will  you  say  when  this  letter 
tells  you  that  which  I  can  no  longer  conceal  without  being  utterly 
unworthy  of  your  goodness  to  me  ?  I  need  the  memory  of  that 
goodness,  the  certainty  of  the  grandeur  and  generosity  of  your 
soul,  but,  above  all,  I  need  the  thought  that  it  is  the  being  you 
love  best  in  the  world  who  separates  us,  before  I  can  summon 
courage  to  take  this  step. 

Mademoiselle,  I  love  your  sister  Mary  ;  I  love  her  with  all  the 
power  of  my  heart  ;  I  love  her  so  that  I  do  not  wish  to  live  —  I 
cannot  live  without  her  !  I  love  her  so  much  that  at  this  moment, 
when  I  am  guilty  toward  you  of  what  a  less  noble  character  than 
yours  might  perhaps  consider  a  cruel  wrong,  I  stretch  to  you  my 


WHY   MICHEL   DECIDED   TO    GO    TO   NANTES.  73 

supplicating  hands  and  say  :  Let  me  hope  that  I  may  obtain   the 
right  to  love  you  as  a  brother  loves  a  sister  ! 

It  was  not  until  this  letter  was  folded  and  sealed  that 
Michel  thought  of  how  it  might  be  made  to  reach  Bertha. 
No  one  in  Nantes  could  be  sent  with  it;  the  danger  was 
too  great  either  for  a  faithful  messenger,  or  for  themselves 
if  the  messenger  were  treacherous.  The  only  means  he 
could  think  of  was  to  return  to  the  country  and  find  some 
peasant  in  the  neighborhood  of  Machecoul  on  whose  fidelity 
he  could  rely,  and  wait  himself  in  the  forest  for  the  reply 
on  which  his  future  hung.  This  was  the  plan  on  which 
he  decided. 

He  spent  the  remainder  of  the  evening  in  making  the 
different  purchases  for  the  comfort  of  Petit-Pierre,  which 
he  packed  in  a  valise,  putting  off  till  the  next  morning  the 
buying  of  a  horse,  —  an  acquisition  which  was  necessary 
to  him  in  future  if  he  was,  as  he  hoped,  to  continue  the 
campaign  he  had  already  begun. 

The  next  day,  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  Michel, 
mounted  on  an  excellent  Norman  beast,  with  his  valise 
behind  him,  was  preparing  to  start  on  his  way  back  to  the 
Retz  region. 


74  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 


VIII. 

THE    SHEEP,     RETURNING    TO    THE     FOLD,    TUMBLES     INTO     A 
PIT-FALL. 

It  was  market-day,  and  the  influx  of  countrymen  was  con- 
siderable in  the  streets  and  along  the  quays  of  Nantes.  At 
the  moment  when  Michel  reached  the  pont  Eousseau  the 
road  was  blocked  by  a  compact  line  of  heavy  vehicles 
loaded  with  grain,  carts  heaped  with  vegetables,  horses, 
mules,  peasants,  and  peasant-women,  all  carrying  in  bas- 
kets, hods,  or  tin-pails  the  produce  they  were  bringing  to 
the  town. 

Michel's  impatience  was  so  great  that  he  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  plunge  into  the  midst  of  the  crowd  ;  but  just  as  he 
was  pushing  his  horse  into  it  he  caught  sight  of  a  young 
girl  leaving  it  in  a  direction  opposite  to  his  own  course, 
and  something  in  her  aspect  made  him  quiver. 

She  was  dressed,  like  other  peasant-women,  in  a  blue- 
and-red  striped  petticoat  and  a  cotton  mantle  with  a  hood  to 
it;  her  head  was  covered  by  a  coif,  with  falling  lappets  of 
the  commonest  kind.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  this  hum- 
ble costume,  she  closely  resembled  Mary,  —  so  closely  that 
the  young  baron  could  not  restrain  a  cry  of  astonishment. 

He  tried  to  turn  back;  but,  unfortunately,  the  commo- 
tion he  made  in  the  crowd  by  the  stopping  and  turning  of 
his  horse  raised  such  a  storm  of  oaths  and  cries  that  he 
had  no  courage  to  brave  it.  He  let  his  beast  continue  its 
way,  swearing  to  himself  at  the  obstacles  which  hindered 
his  advance.  Once  over  the  bridge,  however,  he  jumped 
from  his  horse  and  looked  about  for  some  one  to  hold  it, 


THE  SHEEP  TUMBLES  INTO  A  PIT-FALL.       75 

while  he  went  back  to  see  if  his  eyes  had  deceived  hiui,  or 
whether  it  were  possible  that  Mary  had  come  to  Nantes. 

At  that  instant  a  voice,  nasal  like  that  of  all  the  beggars 
of  that  region,  asked  alms  of  him.  He  turned  quickly,  for 
he  thought  he  knew  the  voice.  Leaning  against  the  last 
post  of  the  bridge  were  two  individuals,  whose  counte- 
nances were  far  too  marked  and  characteristic  to  have 
escaped  his  memory.  They  were  Aubin  Courte-Joie  and 
Trigaud- Vermin,  who,  apparently,  were  there  for  no  other 
purpose  than  to  work  upon  the  pity  of  the  crowd,  though, 
in  all  probability,  they  had  some  object  not  foreign  to  the 
political  and  commercial  interests  of  Maître  Jacques. 

Michel  went  eagerly  up  to  them. 

"  You  know  me  ?  "  he  asked. 

Aubin  Courte-Joie  winked. 

"My  good  monsieur,"  he  said,  "have  pity  on  a  poor 
cartman  who  has  had  both  legs  crushed  under  the  wheels 
of  his  cart,  coming  down  the  hill  by  the  springs  of  Baugé." 

"Yes,  yes,  my  good  man,"  said  Michel,  understanding 
instantly. 

He  went  close  up  to  the  pair  as  he  gave  them  alms,  and 
the  alms  were  a  piece  of  gold,  which  he  slipped  into  the 
capacious  paw  of  Trigaud- Vermin. 

"I  am  here  by  order  of  Petit-Pierre,"  he  said,  in  a  low 
voice,  to  the  false  and  the  real  mendicant;  "hold  my  horse 
for  a  few  moments  while  I  do  an  important  errand." 

The  cripple  made  a  sign  of  assent.  Baron  Michel  tossed 
the  bridle  of  the  horse  to  Trigaud  and  turned  to  re -cross 
the  bridge.  Unfortunately  for  him,  if  the  passage  was 
difficult  for  a  horseman,  it  was  still  more  difficult  for  a 
foot-passenger.  Michel  in  vain  attempted  some  assump- 
tion, and  tried  to  make  his  timid  nature  more  aggressive. 
He  punched  with  his  elbows,'  and  glided  where  he  could 
through  interstices  ;  he  risked  his  life  a  dozen  times  under 
the  wheels  of  hay-carts  and  cabbage-carts,  but  finally  he 
was  forced  to  resign  himself  to  follow  the  stream  and  go 
with  the  torrent,  though  it  was  evident  the  young  peasant- 


76  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

woman  would  be  far  out  of  sight  by  the  time  he  reached 
the  place  where  he  had  seen  her. 

He  thought,  sagaciously  enough,  that  she  must,  like 
other  peasant- women,  have  gone  toward  the  market,  and 
he  took  that  direction,  looking  at  all  the  countrywomen 
he  passed  with  an  anxious  curiosity  that  earned  him  some 
jests  and  came  near  causing  a  quarrel  or  two.  None  of 
them  was  she  whom  he  sought.  He  rushed  through  the 
market  and  the  adjacent  streets,  but  saw  nothing  that 
recalled  to  him  the  graceful  apparition  he  had  seen  on  the 
bridge. 

Completely  discouraged,  he  was  thinking  of  returning  on 
his  steps  and  remounting  his  horse,  when,  as  he  turned  the 
corner  of  the  rue  du  Château  he  saw,  not  twenty  steps  dis- 
tant from  him,  the  identical  petticoat  of  blue-and-red 
stripes  and  the  very  cotton  mantle  of  which  he  was  in 
search.  The  carriage  and  step  of  the  woman  who  wore 
that  dress  had  all  the  elegance  of  Mary's  own  bearing.  It 
was  surely  her  slender  and  delicate  form  the  outline  of 
which  he  saw  through  the  folds  of  the  coarse  material  she 
wore.  Those  were  the  curves  of  her  graceful  neck,  which 
made  the  lappets  of  her  common  coif  an  adornment;  and. 
the  knot  of  hair  which  came  below  the  coif,  surely  it  was 
braided  of  the  same  fair  golden  hair  which  Michel  had  so 
often  admired. 

No,  he  could  not  be  deceived  ;  that  young  peasant-woman 
and  Mary  were  one  and  the  same  person,  and  Michel  was 
so  sure  of  it  that  he  dared  not  pass  her  and  look  into  her 
face  as  he  had  into  that  of  others.  He  contented  himself 
by  simply  crossing  the  street.  The  result  of  that  strategic 
movement  assured  him  he  was  not  mistaken. 

But  why  was  Mary  in  Nantes;  and  being  there,  why 
was  she  thus  disguised  ?  These  questions  Michel  put  to 
himself  without  being  able  to  solve  them,  and  he  was,  after 
a  violent  struggle  with  himself,  just  about  to  approach 
the  young  girl  and  speak  to  her,  when  he  saw  her  stop  at 
No.  17  of  this  very  rue  du  Château,  push  the  gate  of  the 


THE   SHEEP   TUMBLES   INTO   A   PIT-FALL.  77 

house,  and  as  the  gate  was  not  locked,  pass   through  it, 
enter  an  alley,  close  the  gate  behind  her,  and  disappear. 

Michel  went  eagerly  to  the  gate  ;  but  it  was  now  locked. 
He  stood  before  it  in  deep  and  painful  stupefaction,  not 
knowing  what  to  do  next,  and  half-inclined  to  believe  he 
was  dreaming. 

Suddenly  he  felt  a  tap  upon  his  arm  ;  he  shuddered,  so 
far  was  his  mind  at  that  moment  from  his  body.  Then  he 
turned  round.     The  notary,  Loriot,  was  beside  him. 

"You  here  !  "  exclaimed  the  latter,  in  a  tone  that 
denoted  surprise. 

"  Is  there  anything  so  very  astonishing  in  my  being  at 
Nantes,  Maître  Loriot  ?  "  asked  Michel. 

"Come,  speak  lower,  and  don't  stand  before  that  door 
as  if  you  had  taken  root  there;  I  advise  you  not." 

"  Goodness  !  what 's  the  matter  with  you  ?  I  knew  you 
were  cautious,  but  not  to  that  extent." 

"  One  can't  be  too  cautious.  Come,  let 's  talk  as  we 
walk;  then  we  sha'n't  be  remarked  upon."  Passing  his 
handkerchief  over  his  face,  which  was  bathed  in  perspira- 
tion, he  added,  "Though  it  will  compromise  me  horribly." 

"I  swear,  Maître  Loriot,  I  don't  know  what  you  are 
talking  about,"  exclaimed  Michel. 

"You  don't  understand  what  I  mean,  unfortunate  young 
man?  Don't  you  know  that  you  are  down  on  the  list  of 
suspected  persons,  and  that  a  warrant  has  been  issued  for 
your  arrest  ?  " 

"  Well,  let  them  arrest  me  !  "  cried  Michel,  impatiently, 
trying  to  turn  the  notary  back  toward  the  house  into  which 
Mary  had  disappeared. 

"  Arrest  you  !  Hey  !  you  take  it  gayly  enough,  Monsieur 
Michel.  All  right;  call  it  philosophy.  I  ought  to  tell 
you  that  this  same  news,  which  seems  to  you  so  unimpor- 
tant, has  produced  such  a  dreadful  effect  upon  your  mother 
that  if  chance  had  not  thrown  you  in  my  way  here  I  should 
have  gone  immediately  to  Lege  to  find  you." 

"  My  mother  !  "  cried  the  young  man,  whom  the  notary 


78  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

was  touching  on  his  weak  spot,  —  "  what  has  happened  to 
my  mother  ?  " 

''Nothing  has  happened,  Monsieur  Michel.  Thank 
Heaven,  she  is  as  well  as  persons  can  be  when  their  minds 
are  full  of  uneasiness  and  their  hearts  of  grief.  I  must 
not  conceal  from  you  that  that  is  your  mother's  condition 
at  this  moment." 

"Good  God  !  what  do  you  mean  ?"  said  Michel,  sighing 
dolefully. 

"You  know  what  you  are  to  her,  Monsieur  Michel;  you 
can't  have  forgotten  the  care  she  took  of  your  youth,  and 
the  solicitude  she  continues  to  bestow  upon  you,  though 
you  are  now  of  an  age  when  lads  begin  to  slip  through 
their  mother's  fingers.  You  can,  therefore,  imagine  what 
her  tortures  are  in  knowing  that  you  are  exposed  every 
day  to  the  terrible  dangers  that  surround  you.  I  do  not 
conceal  from  you  that  I  considered  it  my  duty  to  inform 
her  of  what  I  suppose  to  be  your  intentions,  and  I  have 
fulfilled  that  duty." 

"  Oh,  what  have  you  said  to  her,  Maître  Loriot  ?  " 

"  I  told  her,  in  plain  language,  that  I  believed  you  to  be 
desperately  in  love  with  Mademoiselle  Bertha  de  Souclay  —  " 

"Goodness  !  "  exclaimed  Michel;  "he,  too  !  " 

"And,"  continued  the  notary,  without  noticing  the 
interruption,  "that,  to  all  appearance,  you  intend  to 
marry  her." 

"  What  did  my  mother  say  ?  "  asked  Michel,  with 
visible  anxiety. 

"Just  what  all  mothers  say  when  they  hear  of  a  mar- 
riage they  disapprove.  But  come,  let  me  question  you 
myself,  my  young  friend;  my  position  as  notary  of  both 
families  ought  to  give  me  some  influence  with  you.  Have 
you  seriously  reflected  on  what  you  are  about  to  do  ?  " 

"Do  you  share  my  mother's  prejudices?"  demanded 
Michel.  "Do  you  know  anything  against  the  reputation 
of  the  Demoiselles  de  Souday  ?  " 

"Nothing  whatever,  my  young  friend,"  replied  Maître 


THE  SHEEP  TUMBLES  INTO  A  PIT-FALL.       70 

Loriot,  while  Michel  gazed  anxiously  at  the  windows 
of  the  house  into  which  Mary  had  entered, — "nothing 
whatever  !  On  the  contrary,  I  consider  those  young 
ladies,  whom  I  have  known  from  childhood,  as  among 
the  purest  and  most  virtuous  in  the  land,  in  spite  of 
the  malicious  nickname  a  few  evil  tongues  have  applied 
to  them." 

"Then,"  said  Michel,  "why  is  it  you  disapprove  of  what 
I  do  ?  " 

"My  young  friend,"  said  the  notary,  "please  observe 
that  I  have  given  no  opinion;  I  simply  advise  prudence. 
You  will  have  to  make  three  times  as  much  effort  to  suc- 
ceed in  what  must  be  called  from  a  certain  point  of  view 
—  pray  excuse  the  word  —  a  folly,  as  it  would  cost  you  to 
renounce  the  attachment  now  ;  though  I  don't  say  but  what 
the  fine  qualities  of  the  young  lady  justify  it." 

"My  dear  Monsieur  Loriot,"  said  Michel,  who  at  a  safe 
distance  from  his  mother  was  not  sorry  to  burn  his  vessels, 
"the  Marquis  de  Souday  has  been  so  good  as  to  grant  me 
his  daughter's  hand;  there  's  no  getting  over  that." 

"Oh,  that  indeed  is  another  thing,"  said  Maître  Loriot. 
"  If  you  have  reached  that  point  in  the  affair,  I  have  only 
one  word  to  say  and  one  advice  to  give.  Remember  that 
it  is  always  a  serious  matter  legally  to  marry  in  defmnce 
of  the  will  of  parents.  Persist  in  your  intention;  that's 
very  right.  But  go  and  see  your  mother;  don't  give  her 
the  chance  to  complain  of  your  neglect.  Try  to  overcome 
her  prejudices." 

"  Hum  !  "  muttered  Michel,  who  felt  the  wisdom  of 
these  remarks. 

"Come,"  persisted  Loriot,  "will  you  promise  me  to  do 
as  I  ask  you  ?  " 

"Yes,  yes  !  "  replied  the  young  man,  who  wanted  to  get 
rid  of  the  notary,  for  he  thought  he  heard  steps  in  the 
alley,  and  feared  that  Mary  might  come  out  while  Maître 
Loriot  was  there. 

"Good  !"  said  the  latter.     "Remember,  also,  that  you 


80  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

are  safer  at  La  Logerie  than  elsewhere.  Your  mother's 
name  and  influence  with  the  administration  can  alone  save 
you  from  the  consequences  of  your  late  conduct.  You 
have  been,  committing  various  pranks  for  some  time  past 
which  no  one  would  have  suspected  you  to  be  capable  of; 
you  must  admit  that,  young  man." 

"Yes,  yes;  I  admit  it,"  cried  Michel,  impatiently. 

"That 's  all  I  want.  The  sinner  who  confesses  is  half- 
repentant.  There  !  now  I  must  say  good-bye  ;  I  leave 
Nantes  at  eleven  o'clock." 

"  Are  you  going  back  to  Lege  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  with  a  young  lady  who  is  to  meet  me  presently 
at  my  hotel,  and  to  whom  I  am  to  give  a  seat  in  my 
cabriolet,  which  I  would  otherwise  offer  to  you." 

"You  would  go  out  of  your  way  a  mile  or  two  to  do  me 
a  service,  would  n't  you  ?  " 

"Of  course;  with  the  greatest  pleasure,  my  dear  Mon- 
sieur Michel,"  said  the  notary. 

"  Then,  go  by  way  of  Banlceuvre,  and  give  this  letter  to 
Mademoiselle  Bertha." 

"So  be  it;  but  for  God's  sake,"  cried  the  notary,  with 
a  frightened  look,  "  be  more  cautious  in  your  way  of  hand- 
ing it  to  me." 

"  I  notice  you  are  not  yourself,  my  dear  Monsieur  Loriot  ; 
when  those  people  passed  us  just  now  you  jumped  off  the 
pavement  as  if  they  had  the  plague.  What 's  the  matter 
with  you  ?     Come,  Mr.  Notary,  speak  up  !  " 

"I'd  change  my  practice  at  this  very  moment  for  the 
poorest  practice  in  the  Sarthe  or  the  Eure  departments. 
I  feel  such  terrible  emotions  that  if  they  go  on  much  longer 
my  days  will  be  numbered  ;  that 's  what 's  the  matter  with 
me.  Monsieur  Michel,"  continued  the  notary,  lowering 
his  voice,  "think  of  it;  they  have  put  four  pounds  of  gun- 
powder in  my  pockets,  against  my  will.  I  tremble  as  I 
walk  along  the  pavement;  every  cigar  that  comes  along 
puts  me  into  a  fever.  Well,  good-bye  ;  take  my  advice 
and  go  back  to  La  Logerie." 


THE    SHEEP    TUMBLES   INTO    A    PIT-FALL.  81 

Michel,  whose  agonies,  like  those  of  Maître  Loriot,  grew 
worse  and  worse,  let  the  notary  depart,  having  got  from 
him  all  he  wanted,  —  namely,  the  certainty  that  his  letter 
would  reach  Bauloeuvre.  No  sooner  was  Loriot  out  of 
sight  than  his  eyes,  returning  naturally  to  the  house  he 
was  watching,  fixed  themselves  on  a  window  where  he 
fancied  he  saw  the  curtain  move,  and  the  vague  silhouette 
of  a  face  looking  at  him  through  the  glass.  He  thought 
it  might  be  on  account  of  his  persistency  in  standing 
before  the  house  that  the  young  girl  watched  him;  he 
therefore  moved  in  the  direction  of  the  river,  and  hid 
behind  the  angle  of  a  house,  not,  however,  losing  sight  of 
all  that  happened  in  the  rue  du  Chateau. 

Presently  the  gate  of  No.  17  opened,  and  the  same  young 
peasant-girl  appeared;  but  she  was  not  alone.  A  young 
man,  dressed  in  a  long  blouse,  and  affecting  rustic  man- 
ners, accompanied  her.  Rapidly  as  they  passed  him, 
Michel  noticed  that  the  man  was  young,  and  the  distinc- 
tion of  his  face  was  in  marked  contrast  to  his  peasant's 
clothes;  he  saw,  too,  that  he  was  jesting  with  Mary  on  a 
footing  of  equality,  offering,  apparently,  to  carry  her  bas- 
ket, —  an  attention  the  young  girl  was  refusing,  with  a 
laugh. 

The  serpents  of  jealousy  gnawed  his  heart.  Convinced, 
as  he  remembered  what  Mary  had  whispered  to  him,  that 
these  disguises  hid  some  amorous  as  well  as  some  political 
intrigue,  he  rushed  away  toward  the  Rousseau  bridge, 
which  lay  in  exactly  the  opposite  direction  to  that 
taken  by  Mary  and  her  friend.  The  crowd  on  the  bridge 
was  no  longer  so  great.  He  crossed  it  easily  ;  but  when 
he  reached  the  further  end,  and  began  to  look  round 
for  Courte-Joie,  Trigaud,  and  his  horse,  all  three  had 
disappeared. 

Michel  was  so  upset  in  mind  that  it  did  not  occur  to  him 
to  search  the  neighborhood.  Remembering,  too,  what 
the  notary  had  said,  he  thought  it  would  be  dangerous  to 
lodge  a  complaint,  which  might  bring  about  his  own  arrest, 

VOL.    II.  —  6 


82  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

and  reveal,  besides,  his  acquaintance  with  the  two  mendi- 
cants. He  therefore  made  up  his  mind  to  do  nothing 
to  recover  his  horse,  but  to  go  home  on  foot;  and  he 
accordingly  took  his  way  toward  Saint-Philbert-de-Grand- 
Lieu. 

Cursing  Mary,  and  shedding  tears  over  the  betrayal  of 
which  he  believed  himself  the  victim,  he  had  no  other 
thought  than  to  do  as  Maître  Loriot  advised,  —  that  is  to 
say,  return  to  La  Logerie  and  fling  himself  into  the  arms 
of  his  mother,  toward  whom  the  sight  he  had  just  seen  im- 
pelled him  far  more  than  the  remonstrances  of  the  notary. 

Thus  preoccupied,  he  reached  the  height  of  Saint- 
Corentin  without  hearing  the  footsteps  of  two  gendarmes 
who  were  walking  behind  him. 

"Your  papers,  monsieur,"  said  one  of  them,  a  corporal, 
after  examining  him  from  head  to  foot. 

"  My  papers  ?  "  exclaimed  Michel,  in  astonishment,  the 
inquiry  being  addressed  to  him  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life, — "I  have  none." 

"  And  why  have  you  none  ?  " 

"Because  I  never  supposed  that  any  passport  was  required 
to  come  from  my  house  into  Nantes." 

"  Where  is  your  house  ?  " 

"It  is  the  château  de  la  Logerie." 

"  What  is  your  name  ?  " 

"Baron  Michel." 

"  Baron  Michel  de  la  Logerie  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  If  you  are  Baron  Michel  de  la  Logerie,  I  arrest  you, M 
said  the  corporal. 

Then,  without  more  ado,  and  before  the  young  man 
could  think  of  flight,  which  from  the  nature  of  the  ground 
was  quite  possible,  the  corporal  eollared  him,  while  the 
other  gendarme,  minion  of  equality  before  the  law,  slipped 
the  hand-cuffs  on  his  wrists. 

This  operation  over,  — and  it  lasted  only  a  few  seconds, 
thanks  to  the  stupefaction  of  the  prisoner  and  the  dexterity 


THE  SHEEP  TUMBLES  INTO  A  PIT-FALL.       83 

of  the  gendarme,  —  the  two  agents  of  the  armed  forces 
conducted  Baron  Michel  to  Saint-Colombin,  where  they 
locked  him  into  a  sort  of  cellar,  belonging  to  the  bar- 
racks of  the  troops  stationed  there,  which  was  used  as  a 
temporary  prison. 


84  THE  LAST   VENDÉE. 


IX. 


TRIGAUD  PROVES  THAT  IP  HE  HAD  BEEN  HERCULES,  HE 
WOULD  PROBABLY  HAVE  ACCOMPLISHED  TWENTY-FOUR 
LABORS    INSTEAD    OF    TWELVE. 

It  was  about  four  in  the  afternoon  when  Michel,  thrust 
into  the  lock-up  of  the  guard-house  at  Saint-Colombin, 
became  aware  of  the  delights  of  that  abode.  On  entering 
what  seemed  to  be  a  dungeon,  the  young  man's  eyes,  accus- 
tomed to  the  brilliant  light  without,  could  distinguish 
nothing  around  him.  Little  by  little  they  grew  accus- 
tomed to  the  darkness,  and  then  their  owner  was  able  to 
make  out  the  sort  of  lodging  he  was  in. 

It  was  partly  under  and  partly  above  the  surface  of  the 
ground;  its  walls  were  of  thicker  and  more  solidly  con- 
structed masonry  than  was  usual  in  such  buildings,  for 
the  reason  that  it  supported  the  walls  of  the  house  above 
it.  The  floor  was  bare  earth;  and  as  the  place  was  very 
damp,  that  earth  was  nearly  mud.  The  ceiling  was  of 
beams,  placed  very  near  together.  The  light  usually 
entered  through  a  grating  placed  just  above  the  level  of 
the  ground;  but  owing  to  the  necessities  of  its  present  use 
this  aperture  was  closed  inside  by  heavy  planks,  and  outside 
by  an  enormous  mill-stone  placed  vertically  in  front  of  it. 
A  hole  in  the  centre  of  the  stone  gave  entrance  to  a  feeble 
ray  of  light,  of  which  two  thirds  was  intercepted  by  the 
plank  shutters,  so  that  it  only  cast  a  single  weird  gleam 
into  the  middle  of  the  cellar. 

In  the  track  of  that  gleam  lay  the  fragments  of  a  cider- 
press,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  branch  of  a  tree  squared  at  one 
end,  and  now  half -rotten,  and  a  circular  trough  of  free- 


TRIGAUD   PROVES   HIS   STRENGTH.  85 

stone  decorated  with  silvery  arabesques  by  the  slimy  and 
capricious  promenades  of  slugs  and  snails. 

To  any  other  prisoner  than  Michel  the  inspection  of  his 
surroundings  might  have  seemed  desperately  discouraging, 
for  it  plainly  showed  there  were  few,  if  any,  chances  of 
escape;  but  the  young  baron  was  moved  to  make  it  by 
nothing  more  than  a  feeling  of  vague  curiosity.  The  first 
anguish  his  heart  had  ever  felt  plunged  him  into  a  state  of 
prostration  where  the  soul  is  indifferent  to  all  outside 
things;  and  in  the  first  shock  of  discovering  that  he  must 
renounce  the  sweet  hope  of  being  loved  by  Mary,  palace  or 
prison  were  alike  to  him. 

He  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  trough,  wondering  who 
could  be  the  young  man  he  had  seen  with  Mary;  then, 
after  the  violence  of  his  jealous  transports  subsided,  he 
turned  to  recollections  of  his  first  intercourse  with  the  sis- 
ters. But  his  anguish  was  as  great  from  the  one  emotion 
as  from  the  other  ;  for,  says  the  Florentine  poet ,  that  great 
painter  of  infernal  torture,  "  There  is  no  greater  pain  than 
to  recall  a  happy  time  in  wretchedness." 

But  let  us  now  leave  the  young  baron  to  his  grief,  and 
see  what  was  happening  in  other  parts  of  the  guard-house 
of  Saint-Colombin. 

This  guard-house,  materially  speaking,  which  had  been 
occupied  for  the  last  few  days  by  a  detachment  of  troops  of 
the  line,  was  a  vast  building,  with  a  front  toward  the 
courtyard,  while  its  rear  looked  out  upon  the  country  road 
that  leads  from  Saint-Colombin  to  Saint-Philbert -de- 
Grand-Lieu,  about  a  kilometre  from  the  first  of  these  two 
villages  and  a  stone's  throw  from  the  high-road  between 
Nantes  and  the  Sables-d'Olonne. 

This  building,  constructed  on  the  ruins  and  with  the 
fragments  of  an  old  feudal  fortress,  occupied  an  eminence 
that  commanded  the  whole  neighborhood.  The  advantages 
of  the  position  had  struck  Dermoncourt  as  he  returned 
from  his  expedition  to  the  forest  of  Machecoul.  Accord- 
ingly, he  left  a  score  of  men  to  hold  it.     It  answered  the 


86  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

purpose  of  a  block-house,  where  expeditionary  columns 
could  rind;  on  occasion,  a  resting-place  or  a  refuge,  and  at 
the  same  time  it  might  be  made  a  sort  of  station  for  pris- 
oners, where  they  could  be  collected  until  a  sufficiently 
imposing  force  was  mustered  to  escort  them  to  Nantes, 
without  danger  of  rescue. 

The  accommodations  of  the  guard-house  consisted  solely 
of  a  somewhat  vast  hall  and  a  b.irn.  The  hall,  over  the 
cellar  in  which  Michel  was  confined,  and  consequently  five 
or  six  feet  above  the  ground,  served  as  the  guard-room.  It 
was  reached  by  a  flight  of  steps,  made  with  the  old  stones 
of  the  fortress,  placed  parallel  with  the  wall. 

The  barn  was  used  as  barracks  for  the  men;  they  slept 
there  on  straw.  The  post  was  guarded  with  all  military 
precautions.  A  sentry  stood  before  the  gate  of  the  court- 
yard which  opened  to  the  road,  and  a  lookout  was  stationed 
in  an  ivy-covered  tower,  the  sole  remains  left  standing  of 
the  old  feudal  castle. 

Now,  about  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  the  soldiers  who 
formed  the  little  garrison  were  seated  on  some  heavy  rol- 
lers which  had  been  left  at  the  foot  of  the  outside  wall  of 
the  house.  It  was  a  favorite  spot  for  their  siesta;  there 
they  enjoyed  the  gentle  warmth  of  the  setting  sun  and  a 
splendid  view  of  the  lake  of  Grand-Lieu  in  the  distance, 
the  surface  of  which,  tinted  by  the  beams  of  the  star  of 
day,  resembled  at  that  hour  an  immense  sheet  of  scarlet 
tin.  At  their  feet  ran  the  road  to  Nantes,  like  a  broad 
ribbon  through  the  midst  of  the  verdure  which  at  that 
season  covered  the  plain;  and  we  must  admit  that  our 
heroes  in  red  trousers  were  more  interested  in  what  hap- 
pened on  that  road  than  in  all  the  beauties  which  Nature 
spread  before  them. 

On  the  evening  of  which  we  write,  the  laborers  leaving 
the  fields,  the  flocks  returning  to  their  stables  made  the 
road  a  somewhat  lively  and  varied  panorama.  Each  heavy 
hay-cart,  each  group  returning  from  the  Nantes  market, 
and,  above  all,  every  peasant- woman  in  her  short  skirt  was 


TRIGAUD    PROVES    HIS   STRENGTH.  87 

a  text  for  remark  and  jocularity,  which,  it  must  be  owned, 
were  not  restrained. 

"Goodness  !  "  cried  one  of  the  men,  suddenly,  "what 's 
that  I  see  down  there  ?  " 

"  A  fellow  with  bagpipes,"  said  another. 

"Bagpipes,  indeed  !  Do  you  think  you  are  still  in  Brit- 
tany ?  Down  here  they  don't  groan  bagpipes  ;  they  only 
whine  complaints." 

"  What  has  he  got  on  his  back,  then,  if  it  is  n't  his 
instrument  ?  " 

"That's  an  instrument,  sure  enough,"  said  a  fourth 
soldier;  "it  must  be  an  organ." 

"  Queer  organ  !  "  said  a  fifth.  "  I  tell  you  that 's  a 
sack;  the  man  's  a  beggar.  You  can  tell  him  by  his 
clothes." 

"Then  his  sack  has  eyes  and  a  nose,  like  the  rest  of  us. 
Why,  look  at  him,  Limousin  !  " 

"Limousin's  arm  is  long,  but  his  sight  is  short,"  said 
another;  "you  can't  have  everything." 

"Pooh  !  "  said  the  corporal;  "I  see  what  it  is.  It  is  one 
man  carrying  another  on  his  shoulders." 

"  The  corporal  is  right  !  "  chorused  the  soldiers. 

"I  am  always  right,"  said  he  of  the  woollen  stripes, 
"  first  as  your  corporal,  next  as  your  superior  ;  and  if  there 
are  any  of  you  who  doubt  after  I  have  once  said  a  thing, 
he  is  going  to  be  convinced  now,  for  here  come  the  men 
straight  toward  us." 

As  he  spoke,  the  tramp  who  had  roused  the  discussion 
(in  whom  our  readers  have  no  doubt  recognized  Trigaud- 
Vermin,  as  in  his  bagpipe,  organ,  or  sack,  they  have  also 
recognized  his  rider,  Aubin  Courte-Joie)  turned  off  the 
main-road  to  the  left,  and  came  up  the  flight  of  steps  which 
led  to  the  guard-house. 

"What  a  pair  of  brigands  !"  said  one  of  the  soldiers. 
"If  they  caught  us  alone,  behind  a  hedge,  either  of  those 
rascals  would  clip  us  a  shot,  would  n't  he,  corporal  ?  " 

"Like  enough,"  responded  the  latter. 


88  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

"But  as  we  are  all  here  together  they  come  and  beg,  — 
ha,  the  cowards  !  " 

"I  '11  be  shot  if  I  give  'em  a  penny,"  said  the  soldier 
who  had  spoken  first. 

"See  here  !"  said  another,  picking  up  a  stone;  "I'll 
put  something  into  his  hat." 

"I  forbid  you,"  said  the  corporal. 

"Why  so?" 

"Because  he  has  n't  any  hat." 

The  soldiers  burst  out  laughing  at  the  joke,  which  was 
recognized  at  once  as  very  choice. 

"Let's  have  a  look,"  said  a  soldier,  "at  what  the  fellow 
is  really  carrying;  don't  discourage  him.  For  my  part,  I 
don't  find  such  delight  in  this  beggarly  guard-house  that  I 
despise  any  sort  of  fun  that  comes  along." 

"Fun?" 

"Yes,  any  kind,  —  music  perhaps.  Every  tramp  in  this 
region  is  a  sort  of  troubadour.  We  '11  make  him  sing 
what  he  knows,  and  a  good  deal  he  does  n't  know;  it  will 
help  pass  the  evening." 

By  this  time  the  mendicant,  now  no  longer  an  enigma 
to  the  soldiers,  was  close  beside  them,  holding  out  his 
hand. 

"You  were  right,  corporal;  he  has  got  another  man 
perched  on  his   shoulders." 

"I  was  wrong,"  responded  the  corporal. 

"How  so?" 

"That  is  n't  a  man,  -—only  a  section  of  humanity." 

The  soldiers  laughed  at  the  second  joke  as  heartily  as 
they  laughed  at  the  first. 

"He  can't  spend  much  on  trousers,"  said  one. 

"And  less  for  boots,"  added  the  facetious  corporal. 

"  Are  n't  they  hideous  ?  "  said  the  Limousin.  "  Upon 
my  word,  you  might  think  'em  a  monkey  mounted  on  a 
bear." 

While  these  poor  waggeries  were  flying  about  and  reach- 
ing Trigaud's  ear,   he   stood  immovable,  holding  out   his 


TRIGAUD    PROVES    HIS    STRENGTH.  89 

hand  and  giving  a  most  pitiable  expression  to  his  face, 
while  Aubin  Courte-Joie,  in  his  capacity  as  orator  of  the 
association,  repeated,  in  his  nasal  voice,  the  unvarying 
formula  :  — 

"  Charity,  if  you  please,  my  good  gentlemen  !  —  charity 
for  a  poor  cartman  with  both  legs  taken  off  by  his  cart, 
coming  down  the  hill  at  Ancenis." 

"  What  ignorant  savages  they  must  be  to  expect  alms  of 
soldiers  in  garrison.  Scamps  !  I  '11  bet  if  we  searched 
their  pockets  we  'd  find  double  what  we  have  got  in  our 
own." 

Hearing  which  suggestion,  Aubin  Courte-Joie  modified 
the  formula,  and  came  down  to  a  precise  request:  — 

"A  bit  of  bread,  just  a  bit  of  bread,  if  you  please,  my 
good  gentlemen,"  he  said.  "If  you  haven't  any  money 
you  have  surely  a  bit  of  bread." 

"Bread!"  said  the  corporal.  "Yes,  you  shall  have 
bread,  my  good  man;  and  with  the  bread,  soup,  and  with 
the  soup  a  bit  of  meat.  We  '11  do  that  for  you;  but  I 
should  like  to  know  what  you'll  do  for  us." 

"My  good  gentlemen,  I'll  pray  God  for  you,"  replied 
Courte-Joie,  in  his  nasal  whine,  which  formed  the  treble  to 
his  partner's  bass. 

"That  will  do  no  harm,"  said  the  corporal,  —  "no,  cer- 
tainly, there's  no  harm  in  that;  but  it  isn't  enough. 
Come,  have  n't  you  anything  funny  in  your  sack  ?  " 

"How  do  you  mean?"  asked  Courte-Joie,  assuming 
ignorance. 

"I  mean,  villanous  old  black-birds  that  you  are,  you 
must  be  able  to  whistle  an  air  or  two;  in  which  case,  let 's 
have  the  music  first.  That  will  pay  for  the  soup  and  the 
bread  and  the  meat." 

"Ah,  yes,  yes;  I  understand.  Well,  we  don't  refuse. 
On  the  contrary,  officer,"  said  Aubin,  flattering  the  cor- 
poral, "it  is  fair  enough  that  if  you  give  us  the  charity  of 
the  good  God  we  should  try  to  amuse  you  and  your  com- 
pany as  best  we  can." 


90  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Good  ;  the  more  the  better.  You  can't  go  too  far,  for 
we  are  dying  of  dulness  in  your  devilish  land." 

"All  right,"  said  Courte- Joie;  "we  '11  begin  by  showing 
you  something  you  never  saw  before." 

Although  the  promise  was  nothing  more  than  the  usual 
exordium  of  clowns  at  a  circus,  it  roused  the  curiosity  of 
the  soldiers,  who  clustered  round  the  mendicants  in  silence, 
with  an  eagerness  that  was  almost  respectful.  Courte- 
Joie,  who  until  then  had  kept  his  seat  on  Trigaud's  shoul- 
ders, made  a  movement  of  his  body,  indicating  that  he 
wished  to  be  deposited  on  the  ground,  and  Trigaud,  with 
that  passive  obedience  which  he  practised  to  the  will  of 
his  master,  seated  him  on  a  fragment  of  the  old  battlement 
half-buried  in  nettles,  which  lay  near  the  rollers  on  which 
the  men  were  seated. 

"  Hey  !  how  neatly  that  was  done  !  "  cried  the  corporal. 
"  I  'd  like  to  recruit  that  fellow  and  turn  him  over  to  the 
fat  major,  who  can't  find  a  cob  fit  to  carry  him." 

During  this  time  Courte-Joie  had  picked  up  a  stone, 
which  he  gave  to  Trigaud.  The  latter,  without  further 
directions,  closed  and  then  opened  his  hand,  showing  the 
stone  reduced  to  fragments. 

"  Good  Lord  !  he  's  a  Hercules  !  You  must  tackle  him, 
Pinguet,"  said  the  corporal,  addressing  the  soldier  we  have 
hitherto  called  the  Limousin. 

"All  right,"  said  the  latter,  jumping  up;  "we'll  see 
about  it." 

Trigaud,  taking  no  notice  of  the  words  or  actions  of 
Pinguet,  continued  his  exercises.  He  seized  two  soldiers 
by  the  straps  of  their  knapsacks,  gently  raised  and  held 
them  aloft  at  arm's-length  for  a  few  seconds,  and  then  as 
gently  put  them  down,  with  perfect  ease. 

The  soldiers  cheered  him  loudly. 

"Pinguet!  Pinguet!"  they  cried,"  where  are  you? 
Here  's  some  one  who  can  knock  you  into  a  cocked-hat." 

Trigaud  continued  his  performances  as  if  these  experi- 
ments on  his   strength  were  a  pre-arranged   matter.     He 


TRIGAUD   PROVES    HIS    STUKXilTH.  91 

invited  two  other  soldiers  to  seat  themselves  astride  of  the 
shoulders  of  the  first  two,  and  he  carried  all  four  with 
almost  as  much  ease  as  if  there  were  but  two.  As  he  put 
them  down,  Pinguet  arrived  with  a  gun  on  each  shoulder. 

"Bravo,  Limousin  !  bravo  !  "  cried  the  soldiers. 

Encouraged  by  the  acclam  icions  of  his  comrades,  Pinguet 
cried  out  :  — 

"All  that  is  mountebank  business.  Here,  you  braggart, 
let  me  see  you  do  what  I  am  going  to  do." 

Putting  a  finger  of  each  hand  into  the  muzzle  of  a  gun, 
he  held  the  weapons  out  before  him,  at  arm's-length. 

"  Pooh  !  "  said  Courte-Joie,  while  Trigaud  looked  on 
with  a  movement  of  the  lips  that  might  pass  for  a  smile  at 
Pinguet's  feat,  —  "pooh  !  bring  two  more  guns." 

When  the  guns  were  brought  Trigaud  put  all  four  muz- 
zles on  the  fingers  of  one  hand  and  raised  them  to  the 
level  of  his  eye,  without  any  contraction  of  the  muscles 
that  betrayed  an  effort.  Pinguet  was  distanced  forever  in 
the  struggle. 

Then  rummaging  in  his  pocket,  Trigaud  brought  out  a 
horse-shoe,  which  he  folded  in  two  as  easily  as  an  ordi- 
nary man  would  fold  a  leather  strap.  After  each  of  his 
experiments  he  turned  his  eyes  to  Courte-Joie,  asking  for 
a  smile  ;  then  Courte-Joie  would  signify  by  a  nod  that  he 
was  satisfied. 

"Come,"  said  Aubin,  "you've  only  earned  our  suppers 
so  far;  now  you  must  get  us  a  night's  lodging.  Ts  n't  that 
so,  my  good  gentlemen  ?  If  my  comrade  does  something 
more  wonderful  still,  won't  you  give  us  a  little  hay  and  a 
corner  in  the  stable  to  lie  on  ?  " 

"As  for  that,  it  is  impossible,"  said  the  sergeant  of  the 
company,  who,  being  attracted  by  the  shouts  and  plaudits 
of  the  soldiers,  had  come  to  share  the  sight;  "the  orders 
are  strict." 

This  answer  seemed  to  discourage  Courte-Joie  greatly; 
his  weasel-face  grew  serious. 

"Never    mind,"    said    one   of    the   men;    "we  '11    club 


92  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

together,  and  get  you  ten  sous,  which  will  pay  for  a  bed 
at  the  nearest  tavern,  and  that  will  be  softer  than  buck- 
wheat hay." 

"If  the  ox  you  ride  has  legs  as  solid  as  his  arms,"  said 
another,  "a  mile  or  two  farther  won't  trouble  you." 

"  First,  let 's  see  the  performance  !  "  cried  the  soldiers. 
"Show  us  his  best  thing." 

There  was  no  repelling  this  enthusiasm,  and  Courte- 
Joie  yielded  with  an  alacrity  which  showed  his  confidence 
in  his  comrade's  biceps. 

"  Have  you  a  grindstone  here,  or  anything  that  weighs 
about  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  pounds  ?  "  he  asked. 

"There  's  the  block  of  stone  you  are  sitting  on,"  said  a 
soldier. 

Courte-Joie  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  If  that  stone  had  a  handle  Trigaud  would  pick  it  up 
for  you  with  one  hand." 

"  There  's  that  millstone  we  tipped  up  before  the  grating 
of  the  dungeon,"  said  a  soldier. 

"Why  not  tell  him  to  lift  the  whole  building  at  once  ?  " 
said  the  corporal.  "  It  took  six  of  you  men  to  put  it  where 
it  is,  and  with  levers,  too.  I  was  furious  that  my  rank 
forbade  me  from  lending  a  hand  to  what  I  called  a  pack 
of  idlers." 

"Besides,  you  must  not  touch  that  millstone,"  inter- 
posed the  sergeant;  "that 's  also  against  orders.  There  's 
a  prisoner  in  the  cellar." 

Courte-Joie  gave  Trigaud  a  glance,  and  the  latter,  pay- 
ing no  attention  to  the  sergeant's  remark,  went  straight  to 
the  millstone. 

"Don't  you  hear  me?"  said  the  sergeant,  raising  his 
voice,  and  catching  Trigaud  by  the  arm  ;  "  you  are  not  to 
touch  it." 

"Why  not  ?"  said  Courte-Joie.  "If  he  moves  it  he  '11 
replace  it;  don't  be  afraid." 

"Besides,"  said  a  soldier,  "if  you  look  at  the  mouse 
they  have  got  in  the  trap  you  '11  see  it  would  never  run 


TKIGAUD    PROVES   HIS    STRENGTH.  93 

away  if  it  could,  —  a  poor  little  monsieur  who  might  be 
taken  for  a  woman  in  disguise.  I  thought  at  iirst  he  was 
the  Duchesse  de  Berry  herself." 

''Yes,  and  he  's  too  busy  crying  to  think  of  escape,"  said 
the  corporal,  who  was  evidently  burning  with  the  desire 
to  see  the  feat.  "When  we  took  him  his  food,  Pinguet 
and  T,  — that  is,  I  and  Pinguet,  — he  burst  into  tears;  I 
declare  if  his  eyes  were  n't  two  faucets  !  " 

"Well,  well,"  said  the  sergeant,  who  was  no  less  curious 
than  the  rest  to  see  how  the  tramp  would  accomplish  his 
Titanic  task,  "I  will  take  the  responsibility  of  allowing  it." 

Trigaud  profited  by  the  permission.  He  seized  the  mill- 
stone between  his  arms  at  its  base,  leaned  his  shoulder  on 
its  centre,  and  with  a  powerful  effort  tried  to  raise  it. 
But  the  weight  of  this  enormous  mass  of  stone  had  sunk 
it  into  the  ground  on  which  it  rested  to  the  depth  of  some 
four  or  five  inches,  and  the  adherence  of  this  earth  socket, 
thus  hollowed,  neutralized  Trigaud's  efforts. 

Courte-Joie,  who  had  entered  the  circle  of  soldiers  by 
creeping  on  his  hands  and  knees,  like  a  huge  scarabœus, 
called  attentiou  to  the  nature  of  the  difficulty;  then  with 
a  large  flat  stone  which  he  picked  up,  and  partly  also  with 
his  hands,  he  grubbed  out  the  earth  which  hindered  the 
success  of  Trigaud's  feat.  The  giant  then  applied  himself 
once  more  to  the  work.  Soon  he  raised  the  huge  block  and 
held  it  up  for  a  few  seconds,  resting  against  his  shoulder 
and  also  against  the  wall,  about  a  foot  from  the  ground. 

The  enthusiasm  of  the  soldiers  knew  no  bounds.  They 
pressed  around  Trigaud  and  overwhelmed  him  with  con- 
gratulations to  which  he  seemed  perfectly  insensible;  they 
shouted  in  frantic  admiration,  which  was  shared  by  the  cor- 
poral, and  then,  through  the  natural  hierarchy  of  rank,  by 
the  sergeant  himself.  They  talked  of  carrying  Trigaud 
in  triumph  to  the  sutler's,  where  the  reward  of  his  vigor 
awaited  him,  swearing  by  every  oath  known  to  the  sons 
of  Mars  that  Trigaud  deserved  not  only  the  bread  and 
soup  and  meat  promised  by  the  corporal,  but  the  rations  of 


94  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

a  general,  or  indeed  of  the  king  of  France,  which  would 
be  none  too  much  to  maintain  the  strength  required  for 
such  prowess. 

As  we  have  said,  Trigaud  seemed  in  no  way  puffed-up 
by  his  triumph;  his  countenance  remained  as  impassible 
as  that  of  an  ox  allowed  to  breathe  alter  some  powerful 
exertion.  His  eyes,  however,  sought  those  of  Aubin 
Courte- Joie,  as  if  to  ask  "Master,  are  you  satisfied  ?" 

Courte-Joie,  on  the  other  hand,  looked  radiant,  possibly 
because  of  the  impression  made  upon  the  spectators  by  a 
strength  he  considered  his  own,  though  it  far  exceeded 
that  which  Nature  had  originally  bestowed  upon  him. 
Perhaps,  however,  his  satisfaction  was  really  caused  by 
the  success  of  a  little  manœuvre  he  had  cleverly  performed 
while  the  attention  of  all  was  concentrated  on  his  com- 
panion,—  a  manœuvre  which  consisted  in  slipping  under  the 
millstone  the  large  flat  stone  he  held  in  his  hand,  placing 
it  in  such  a  way  that  the  enormous  mass  which  closed  the 
grating  of  the  cellar  was  so  poised  upon  its  smooth  surface 
that  the  strength  of  a  child  would  suffice  to  displace  it. 

The  two  beggars  were  taken  to  the  sutler's,  and  there 
Trigaud  furnished  still  another  text  of  admiration  to  the 
soldiers.  After  he  had  swallowed  an  enormous  canful  of 
soup,  four  rations  of  beef  and  two  loaves  of  bread  were 
placed  before  him.  Trigaud  ate  the  first  loaf  with  the  first 
two  rations;  then,  as  if  by  changing  his  method  of  deglu- 
tition he  changed  and  improved  the  taste  of  the  objects 
swallowed,  he  took  his  second  loaf,  split  it  in  two,  scooped 
out  and  ate,  by  way  of  pastime,  the  crumb  within  it, 
placed  the  meat  in  the  cavity,  put  the  two  halves  of  the 
crust  together,  and  proceeded  to  bite  through  the  whole 
with  a  coolness  and  force  of  jaw  which  brought  down 
thunders  of  applause  from  the  delighted  audience. 

After  about  five  minutes  of  this  exercise  nothing  remained 
of  either  bread  or  meat  but  a  few  crumbs  of  the  loaf,  which 
Trigaud,  apparently  ready  to  begin  all  over  again,  care- 
fully collected.      His  admirers  hastened  to  bring  him  a 


TRIGAUD    PROVES   HIS    STRENGTH.  95 

third  loaf,  which,  though  stale  and  dry,  Trigaud  treated 
like  the  first  two. 

The  soldiers  were  not  yet  satisfied;  they  would  have 
liked  to  push  their  investigations  still  further,  but  the 
sergeant  thought  it  more  prudent  to  bring  their  scientific 
curiosity  to  an  end.  Courte-Joie  had  now  become  thought- 
ful, and  his  expression  was  noticed  by  the  soldiers. 

"Ah,  ça  !  "  said  the  corporal;  "here  you  are,  eating  and 
drinking  on  the  earnings  of  your  comrade.  That 's  not 
fair;  it  seems  to  me  you  might  give  us  a  song,  if  only  to 
pay  your  scot." 

"UnquestionabTy,"  said  the  sergeant. 

"Yes,  yes,  a  song!"  cried  the  soldiers,  "and  then  the 
affair  will  be  complete." 

"Hum!"  muttered  Courte-Joie.  "I  know  some  songs, 
of  course  I  do." 

"All  right  then,  sing  away  !  " 

"But  my  songs  may  n't  be  to  your  liking." 

"Never  mind, — so  long  as  it  isn't  a  fugue  for  the 
devil's  funeral,  anything  will  be  fun  to  us;  we  are  not 
hard  to  please  at  Saint-Colombin." 

"Yes,"  said  Courte-Joie,  "I  can  see  that;  you  are 
horribly   bored." 

"Monstrously,"  said  the  sergeant. 

"We  don't  expect  you  to  sing  like  Monsieur  Nourrit," 
observed  a  Parisian. 

"Make  it  a  bit  quizzical,"  said  another  man,  "and  the 
more  the  better." 

"As  I  have  eaten  your  bread  and  drunk  your  wine,"  said 
Courte-Joie,  "I  have  no  right  to  refuse  you  anything;  but, 
T  repeat  it,  my  songs  will  probably  not  be  to  your  taste." 

And  thereupon,  he  trolled  out  the  following  stanza:  — 

"Look!  look!  my  guru,  down  there  !  down  there! 
Don't  you  see  the  infernal  band  ? 
Spread  out,  spread  out,  surprise  them  there, 

Behind  the  gorse,  across  the  land. 
Spread  out  !  I  say,  ray  gars  !  my  r/ars  / 
Await  the  Blues  with  steady  hand." 


96  TIIE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

Courte-Joie  got  no  farther.  After  a  moment  of  sur- 
prised silence  at  his  first  words  a  roar  of  indignation  arose  ; 
ten  soldiers  sprang  upon  him  and  the  sergeant,  seizing  him 
by  the  collar,  threw  him  on  the  ground. 

"Villain  !"  he  cried,  "I'll  teach  you  to  come  here  in 
our  midst  and  sing  praises  to  your  brigands." 

But  before  the  words  were  well  out  of  his  mouth  (words 
to  which  he  added  a  variety  of  adverbs  that  were  custom- 
ary with  him)  Trigaud,  his  eyes  flashing  with  anger,  made 
his  way  through  to  Courte-Joie,  pushed  back  the  sergeant 
and  stood  before  his  comrade  in  so  threateuing  an  attitude 
that  the  soldiers  remained  for  some  moments  silent  and 
uncertain. 

But  soon,  mortified  at  being  held  at  bay  by  an  unarmed 
man,  they  drew  their  sabres,  and  rushed  upon  the  beggars. 

"  Kill  them  !  kill  them  !  "  they  cried;  "  they  are  Chouans  !  " 

"You  asked  me  for  a  song;  I  warned  you  that  the  songs 
I  knew  wrere  not  to  your  taste,"  cried  Courte-Joie,  in  a 
voice  that  rose  high  above  the  tumult.  "  You  ought  not  to 
have  insisted.     Why  do  you  complain  ?  " 

"  If  you  only  knew  such  songs  as  you  have  just  sung  you 
are  a  rebel,  and  I  arrest  you  peremptorily." 

"I  know  such  songs  as  please  the  people  of  the  towns 
and  villages  whose  alms  are  my  living.  A  poor  cripple 
like  me  and  an  idiot  like  my  comvade  can't  be  dangerous. 
Arrest  us  if  you  choose;  but  such  captures  won't  do  you 
any  honor." 

"That  may  be,"  replied  the  sergeant,  "but  meantime 
you  '11  sleep  in  the  lock-up.  You  were  puzzled  where  to 
go  for  a  night's  lodging,  my  fine  fellow;  well,  I'll  give 
you  one.  Come,  men,  seize  and  search  them,  and  let  us 
lock  them  up  incontinently." 

But,  as  Trigaud  still  maintained  a  threatening  attitude, 
no  one  hastened  to  execute  the  sergeant's  order. 

"If  you  don't  go  with  a  good  grace,"  said  the  latter, 
"  I  '11  send  for  some  loaded  muskets,  and  we  will  see  if 
your  skiD  is  bullet-proof." 


TRIGAUD    PROVES    HIS   STRENGTH.  97 

"Come,  Trigaud,  my  lad,"  said  Courte- Joie,  "if  we 
must  resign  ourselves,  we  must;  besides,  it  can't  matter, 
they  won't  detain  us  long.  Their  fine  prisons  are  not  built 
for  poor  devils  like  us." 

"That's  right,"  said  the  sergeant,  much  pleased  at  the 
pacific  turn  the  affair  was  taking.  "You  will  be  searched, 
and  if  nothing  suspicious  is  found  upon  you,  and  you 
behave  properly  during  the  night,  we  '11  see  about  letting 
you  out  to-morrow  morning." 

The  two  beggars  were  searched,  but  nothing  was  found 
upon  them  except  a  few  copper  coins;  which  confirmed  the 
sergeant  in  his  ideas  of  clemency. 

"After  all,"  he  said,  pointing  to  Trigaud.  "that  great  ox 
is  not  guilty;  I  see  no  reason  why  I  should  lock  him  up." 

"If  you  do,"  said  the  Limousin,  "he  might  take  it  into 
his  head,  like  his  forefather  Samson,  to  shake  the  walls 
and  bring  them  down  about  our  ears." 

"You  are  right,  Pinguet,"  said  the  sergeant,  "because 
that 's  my  opinion,  too.  We  should  only  embarrass  our- 
selves by  holding  the  pair.  Come,  off  with  you,  friend, 
and  quick  too  !  " 

"Oh  !  my  good  monsieur,  don't  separate  us,"  cried 
Courte-Joie,  in  a  tearful  voice.  "  We  can't  do  without 
each  other;  he  walks  for  me,  and  I  think  for  him." 

"Upon  my  word,"  said  a  soldier,  "they  are  worse  than 
lovers." 

"No,"  said  the  sergeant  to  Courte-Joie.  "I  shall  make 
you  pass  the  night  in  the  dungeon  to  punish  you,  and  to- 
morrow the  officer  of  the  day  will  decide  what  is  to  be 
done  with  your  carcass.     Come,  to  the  cellar  !  " 

Two  soldiers  approached  Courte-Joie;  but  he  with  an 
agility  not  to  be  expected  in  so  helpless  a  body,  sprang 
upon  Trigaud's  shoulders,  and  the  giant  walked  peacefully 
along  toward  the  door  of  the  dungeon,  under  escort  of 
the  soldiers. 

On  the  way  Aubin  put  his  lips  close  to  the  ear  of  his 
comrade  and  said  some  words   in  a  low  voice.     Trigaud 

VOL.   II.  —  7 


08  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

deposited  his  master  at  the  cellar-door,  through  which  the 
sergeant  thrust  the  cripple,  who  made  his  entrance  by  roll- 
ing forward  like  an  enormous  ball. 

The  soldiers  then  took  Trigaud  outside  the  courtyard 
gate,  which  they  closed  behind  him.  The  giant  stood  for  a 
few  moments  motionless  and  bewildered,  as  if  he  did  not 
know  what  course  to  decide  upon.  He  tried  at  first  to  sit 
down  on  the  rollers,  where,  as  we  have  seen,  the  soldiers 
took  their  siesta.  But  the  sentry  made  him  understand 
that  that  was  impossible,  and  the  beggar  departed  in  the 
direction  of  the  village  of  Saint-Colombin. 


GIVING   THE    SLIP.  99 


X. 


GIVING   THE   SLIP. 


About  two  hours  after  Aubin  Courte-Joie's  incarceration 
the  sentry  of  the  post  heard  a  cart  coming  up  the  road 
which  led  past  the  guard-house.  "Qui  vive  ?"  he  cried; 
and  when  the  cart  was  only  a  short  distance  from  him  he 
ordered  it  to  halt.    The  cart,  or  rather  the  cartman,  obeyed. 

The  corporal  and  four  soldiers  came  out  of  the  guard- 
room to  inspect  both  man  and  vehicle.  The  cart  was  a 
harmless  one,  loaded  with  hay,  and  was  like  all  the  others 
that  were  plodding  along  the  road  to  and  from  Nantes 
during  the  evening.  Only  one  man  was  with  it;  he 
explained  that  he  was  going  to  Saint-Philbert  with  hay  for 
his  landlord,  —  adding  that  he  went  by  night  to  economize 
time,  which  was  precious  at  this  season  of  the  year.  The 
corporal  gave  orders  to  let  him  pass. 

But  this  permission  was  wasted  on  the  poor  fellow.  His 
cart,  drawn  by  a  single  horse,  had  stopped  at  the  steepest 
part  of  the  rising  ground  about  the  guard-house,  and  in 
spite  of  the  efforts  made  by  horse  and  cartman  it  was 
impossible  to  start  the  heavy  vehicle  again. 

"There  isn't  any  sense,"  said  the  corporal,  "in  overbur- 
dening a  beast  like  that  !  Don't  you  see  that  your  horse 
has  double  the  load  he  can  draw  ?  " 

"What  a  pity,"  remarked  one  of  the  soldiers,  "that  the 
sergeant  let  that  big  ox  of  a  fellow  we  had  here  go.  We 
might  have  harnessed  him  to  the  horse  and  I  '11  warrant 
he  'd  have  pulled  to  the  collar." 

"  That 's  supposing  he  would  have  let  himself  be  har- 
nessed." 


100  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

If  the  man  who  spoke  last  had  looked  behind  the  cart, 
he  would  have  seen  good  reason  why  Trigaud  should  not 
allow  himself  to  be  harnessed  to  the  front  of  the  cart  to 
pull  it  forward;  he  would  also  have  understood  the  diffi- 
culty the  horse  found  in  starting  the  cart.  For  this 
difficulty  was  chiefly  owing  to  Trigaud  himself.  The 
giant,  completely  hidden  in  the  darkness  and  behind  the 
hay,  was  dragging  at  the  rear  bar  of  the  cart  and  opposing 
his  strength  to  that  of  the  horse,  with  as  much  success  as 
he  had  won  when  exhibiting  his  prowess  in  the  evening. 

"Shall  we  lend  you  a  hand  ?  "  said  the  corporal. 

"Wait  till  I  try  again,"  said  the  driver,  who  had  turned 
his  cart  obliquely,  to  lessen  the  sharpness  of  the  acclivity, 
and  now,  grasping  the  horse  by  the  bridle,  prepared  for  a 
final  effort  to  disprove  the  blame  the  corporal  laid  upon  him. 

He  whipped  his  beast  vigorously,  exciting  him  by  voice 
and  pulling  on  the  bridle,  while  the  soldiers  joined  their 
cries  to  his.  The  horse  stiffened  all  four  legs  for  the 
effort,  making  the  sparks  fly  from  his  heels  among  the 
stones  of  the  road;  then,  he  suddenly  fell  down,  and  at 
the  same  moment,  as  if  the  wheels  had  encountered  some 
obstacle  which  disturbed  their  equilibrium,  the  cart  swayed 
over  to  left  and  upset  against  the  building. 

The  soldiers  ran  forward  and  helped  to  release  the  horse 
from  the  harness  and  get  him  on  his  legs.  The  result  of 
their  friendly  eagerness  was  that  none  of  them  saw 
Trigaud,  who,  satisfied  no  doubt  with  a  result  to  which 
he  had  powerfully  contributed  by  slipping  under  the  cart 
and  hoisting  it  on  his  Herculean  shoulders,  until  it  lost  its 
centre  of  gravity,  now  retired  composedly  behind  a  hedge 
to  await  events. 

"  Shall  we  help  you  to  set  your  cart  back  on  its  pin  ?  " 
said  the  corporal  to  the  driver.  "  If  so,  you  must  get  an 
additional  horse." 

"Faith,  no  !  "  cried  the  cartman.  "To-morrow  I  '11  see 
about  it.  It  is  evident  the  good  God  does  n't  mean  me  to 
keep  on,  — mustn't  go  against  His  will." 


GIVING   THE    SLIP.  101 

So  saying,  the  peasant  threw  the  reins  on  the  crupper  of 
his  horse,  pushed  up  the  collar,  mounted  the  animal,  and 
departed,  after  wishing  good-night  to  the  soldiers,  and 
saying  he  should  be  back  in  the  morning  to  remove  the 
hay.  Two  hundred  yards  from  the  guard-house  Trigaud 
joined  him. 

"Well,"  said  the  peasant,  "was  that  done  to  your  lik- 
ing ?     Are  you  satisfied  ?  " 

"  Yes,  "  replied  Trigaud,  "  that  was  just  as  gars  Aubin 
Courte- Joie  ordered." 

"Good  luck  to  you,  then  !  As  for  me,  I'll  put  the 
horse  back  where  I  found  it.  But  when  the  cartman 
wakes  up  to-morrow  and  looks  for  his  cart  and  his  hay 
he  '11  be  rather  surprised  to  find  it  up  there." 

"Well,  tell  him  it  is  for  the  good  of  the  cause,  and  he 
won't  mind,"  replied  Trigaud. 

The  two  men  parted. 

Trigaud,  however,  did  not  leave  the  place;  he  roamed 
about  its.  neighborhood  till  he  heard  the  stroke  of  twelve 
from  the  steeple  of  Saint-Colombin.  Then  he  returned  to 
the  guard-house,  sabots  in  hand,  and  without  making  the 
slightest  noise,  or  rousing  the  attention  of  the  sentry,  who 
was  pacing  up  and  down,  he  crept  to  the  grating  of  the 
dungeon.  Once  there  he  softly  drew  the  hay  into  a  thick 
heap  beside  the  millstone,  which  he  then,  as  softly,  turned 
over  upon  it.  Then  he  leaned  behind  it  to  the  grating, 
wrenched  off  the  boards  that  closed  it,  drew  out  first 
Courte-Joie,  whom  Michel  pushed  behind,  then  the  young 
baron  by  the  hands;  after  which,  putting  one  on  each 
shoulder,  Trigaud,  still  barefooted,  walked  rapidly  away 
from  the  neighborhood  of  the  guard-house,  making,  in 
spite  of  his  immense  size  and  the  weight  he  carried,  no 
more  noise  than  a  cat  on  a  carpet. 

When  he  had  gone  about  five  hundred  yards  he  stopped; 
not  that  he  was  tired  but  because  Aubin  Courte-Joie  signed 
to  him.  Michel  slipped  to  the  ground  and  feeling  in  his 
pocket   pulled   out  a  handful  of  money,  among   it  a  few 


1.02  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

gold  coins  which  he  deposited  in  Trigaud's  capacious 
hand. 

The  giant  made  as  though  he  were  about  to  put  them  in 
a  pocket  twice  as  capacious  as  the  hand  itself,  but  Aubin 
Courte-Joie  stopped  him. 

"Return  that  to  monsieur,"  he  said;  "  we  don't  take  pay 
from  both  sides." 

"Both  sides  !  "  exclaimed  Michel,  "what  do  you  mean  ?" 

"Yes;  we  haven't  obliged  you  personally  as  much  as 
you  think  for,"  said  Courte- Joie. 

"I  don't  understand  you,  friend." 

"My  young  gentleman,"  said  the  cripple,  "now  that  we 
are  safely  outside  that  cellar  I  '11  frankly  admit  that  I  lied 
to  you  just  now,  when  I  said  I  bad  got  myself  locked  up 
merely  to  get  you  out  of  that  hole.  But,  don't  you  see, 
I  wanted  your  help;  I  could  never  have  clambered  up 
alone  to  that  grating.  Now,  however,  thanks  to  your 
good-will  and  my  friend  Trigaud's  wrists,  we  've  given 
'em  the  slip  successfully,  and  I  feel  bound  to  tell  you  that 
you  have  only  exchanged  one  captivity  for  another." 

"  What  does  that  mean  ?  " 

"It  means  that  just  now  you  were  in  a  damp  unhealthy 
prison,  and  now,  though  you  are  in  the  midst  of  the  fields, 
on  a  calm,  still  night,  you  are  none  the  less  in  prison." 

"In  prison?" 

"Well,  a  prisoner." 

"Whose  prisoner  ?  " 

"  Mine,  of  course  !  " 

"  Yours  ?  "  said  Michel,  laughing. 

"  Yes,  for  the  time  being.  Oh,  you  need  n't  laugh  ! 
You  are  a  prisoner,  I  tell  you,  till  I  consign  you  to  the 
hands  that  want  you." 

"  Whose  hands  are  they  ?  " 

"  As  for  that,  you  can  find  out  for  yourself.  I  fulfil  my 
errand,  neither  more  nor  less.  You  needn't  be  frightened; 
you  might  have  fallen  into  worse  hands,  that 's  all  I  shall 
tell  you." 


GIVING   THE    SLIP.  103 

"But  —  " 

"Well,  in  return  for  services  that  have  been  done,  and 
in  consideration  of  a  good  sum  of  money  for  my  poor 
Trigaud,  I  took  the  order  of  a  person  who  said  :  'Help  M. 
le  Baron  Michel  de  la  Logerie  to  escape,  and  bring  him  to 
nie.'  I  have  helped  you  to  escape,  and  now  I  am  taking 
you  to  that  person,  Monsieur  le  baron." 

"Listen,"  said  the  young  man,  who  did  not  comprehend 
one  word  of  all  the  tavern-keeper  was  telling  him  :  "  Here 
is  my  purse,  well-filled;  put  me  on  the  road  to  La  Logerie, 
where  I  desire  to  be  this  evening,  and  take  the  purse  and 
my  thanks  to  boot." 

Michel  fancied  that  his  two  liberators  did  not  think  the 
price  paid  sufficient. 

"Monsieur,"  said  Courte- Joie,  with  all  the  dignity  of 
which  lie  was  capable,  "my  comrade  Trigaud  cannot  accept 
your  reward  because  he  has  been  already  paid  for  doing 
exactly  the  contrary  of  what  you  wish.  As  for  me,  I  am 
not  aware  if  }^ou  know  who  I  am,  and  therefore  it  is  best 
to  tell  you.  I  am  an  honest  trader,  whom  differences  of 
opinion  with  the  government  have  compelled  to  close  his 
business;  but,  miserable  as  my  external  appearance  may 
be,  let  me  tell  you  that  I  give  my  services  to  others,  I 
don't  sell  them." 

"But  where  the  devil  are  you  taking  me  ?"  demanded 
Michel,  who  certainly  did  not  expect  such  sensitive  feel- 
ings in  his  strange  conductor. 

"Be  so  good  as  to  follow  us,  and  in  less  than  an  hour 
you  will  find  out." 

"Follow  you,  indeed  !  when  you  say  I  am  your  prisoner! 
Not  I  !     I  am  not  so  amiable  as  all  that." 

Courte- Joie  made  no  answer;  but  a  single  touch  on 
Trigaud's  arm  told  the  giant  what  he  had  to  do,  and  the 
young  man  had  scarcely  uttered  the  words  and  made  a  hasty 
step  in  advance,  before  Trigaud,  flinging  out  his  arm  like 
a  grapnel-iron,  seized  him  by  the  collar.  Michel  tried  to 
shout,  preferring  to  be  retaken  by  the  soldiers  rather  than 


104  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

be  Trigaud's  prisoner.  But  with  his  free  hand  the  giant 
grasped  the  baron's  face  and  silenced  him  as  successfully  as 
the  famous  gag  of  Monsieur  de  Vendôme  might  have  done  it. 
In  this  condition  Michel  was  rushed,  with  the  rapidity  of  a 
race-horse,  across  the  fields  for  a  distance  of  some  seven  or 
eight  hundred  yards,  half  suspended  in  space  by  the  arm  of 
the  colossus,  so  that  he  touched  the  ground  with  the  points 
of  his  toes  only. 

"That  will  do,  Trigaud,"  said  Courte- Joie,  who  was  in 
his  usual  place  on  the  shoulders  of  his  human  steed,  who 
seemed  to  care  little  for  the  double  burden  ;  "  that  will 
do;  the  young  baron  is  disgusted  enough  by  this  time  with 
the  idea  of  going  back  to  La  Logerie.  Besides,  we  were 
cautioned  to  take  care  of  him;  it  won't  do  to  spoil  the 
merchandise."  Then  as  Trigaud  halted  obediently,  Aubin 
said  to  Michel,  who  was  nearly  suffocated,  "  Will  you  be 
docile  now  ?  " 

"You  are  the  stronger,  and  I  have  no  arms,"  said  the 
baron.  "I  am  therefore  obliged  to  submit  to  your  ill- 
treatment." 

"Ill-treatment  !  Ha  !  don't  you  say  that,  or  I  '11  appeal 
to  your  honor  to  say  if  it  is  n't  true  that  you  have  urged 
me  all  along,  both  in  the  dungeon  of  the  Blues  and  here  in 
the  fields,  to  let  you  go  back  to  La  Logerie,  and  that  it  was 
only  your  obstinacy  which  obliged  me  to  use  violence." 

"Well,  at  any  rate,  tell  me  the  name  of  the  person  who 
ordered  you  to  come  after  me  and  take  me  to  him." 

"I  am  positively  forbidden  to  do  so,"  said  Courte-Joie, 
"but,  without  transgressing  orders,  I  can  tell  you  that  it 
is  one  of  your  very  best  friends." 

A  cold  chill  ran  through  Michel's  heart.  He  thought  of 
Bertha.  He  fancied  she  had  received  his  letter.  It  was 
doubtless  an  angry  "she-wolf  "  who  awaited  him,  and,  pain- 
ful as  the  interview  would  be,  he  felt  that  he  could  not, 
in  honor,  refuse  it. 

"Very  good,"  he  said;  "I  know  now  who  it  is." 

"You  know,  do  you  ?  " 


GIVING   THE    SLIP.  105 

"Yes,  it  is  Mademoiselle  de  Souday." 

Aubin  Courte- Joie  did  not  answer;  but  he  looked  at 
Trigaud  with  an  air  that  seemed  to  say,  "  Faith  !  he  's 
guessed  it  !  "     Michel  intercepted  the  look. 

"Let  us  walk  on,"  he  said. 

"  You  won't  try  to  get  away  ?  " 

"No." 

"  On  your  word  of  honor  ?  " 

"  On  my  word  of  honor.  " 

"  Well,  as  you  are  now  sensible,  we  '11  give  you  the 
means  of  getting  along  without  skinning  your  feet  among 
the  briers  or  gluing  them  to  this  cursed  sticky  soil,  which 
adds  at  least  seven  pound  weight  to  our  boots." 

These  words  were  soon  explained  to  Michel,  for  after 
crossing  the  highway  behind  Trigaud,  and  going  a  hun- 
dred yards  into  the  woods  that  bordered  the  road  he  heard 
the  whinnying  of  a  horse. 

"My  horse  !  "  he  exclaimed,  not  concealing  his  surprise. 

"Did  you  think  we  had  stolen  it  ?"  asked  Courte- Joie. 

"Why  didn't  you  stay  at  the  place  where  I  gave  it  to 
you  ?  " 

"Confound  it!"  replied  Aubin.  "I'll  tell  you:  we 
noticed  a  lot  of  men  walking  round  us  and  watching  us 
with  an  interest  that  was  too  deep  not  to  be  disquieting; 
and  as  inquisitive  folk  are  not  to  my  taste,  and  time  went 
by  and  you  did  n't  return,  we  thought  we  had  better  take 
your  beast  to  Banlœuvre,  where  we  supposed  you  had 
gone,  if  not  arrested;  and  it  was  only  as  we  went  along 
we  discovered  that  if  not  actually  arrested  you  soon 
would  be." 

"  Soon  would  be  ?  " 

"Yes,  and  so  you  were." 

"Were  you  near  me  when  the  gendarmes  arrested  me  ?" 

"My  young  gentleman,"  replied  Courte- Joie  in  his  jeer- 
ing, sarcastic  way,  "you  must  have  little  experience  in  life 
or  you  would  n't  go  along  the  high-roads  dreaming  of  your 
own  affairs,  instead  of  looking  about  you  and  seeing  who 


106  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

go  and  come  and  what  they  are  doing.  You  might  have 
heard  the  trot  of  those  gendarmes  ten  minutes  before  they 
came  up  with  you;  we  heard  them,  and  you  might  easily 
have  gone  into  the  woods  as  we  did." 

Michel  took  care  not  to  say  what  was  rilling  his  mind  to 
the  exclusion  of  every  other  thought  at  the  moment  the 
gendarmes  arrested  him;  he  contented  himself  by  giving  a 
deep  sigh  at  this  reminder  of  his  sufferings.  Then  he 
mounted  his  horse,  which  Trigaud  had  unfastened  and  pre- 
sented to  him  awkwardly  enough,  though  Courte- Joie 
endeavored  to  show  his  henchman  how  to  hold  a  stirrup 
properly.  Then  they  took  once  more  to  the  high-road,  and 
the  giant,  with  his  hand  on  the  withers  of  the  horse, 
accompanied  Michel  easily  at  whatever  pace  the  latter 
chose  to  ride. 

A  mile  and  a  half  farther  on  they  struck  into  a  cross- 
road, and  Michel  fancied,  dark  as  it  was,  that  he  recog- 
nized the  path  from  certain  shapes  in  the  dark  masses  of 
the  trees.  Presently  they  reached  a  crossway  at  sight  of 
which  the  young  man  quivered.  He  had  passed  that  place 
on  the  evening  when  for  the  first  time  he  walked  home  with 
Bertha  from  Tinguy's  cottage.  A  minute  more  and  they 
were  making  their  way  to  the  cottage  itself,  where,  in 
spite  of  the  lateness  of  the  hour,  a  light  was  sparkling;  at 
that  instant  a  little  cry,  apparently  a  call,  came  from 
behind  the  hedge  that  ran  along  the  road. 

Aubin  Courte-Joie  answered  it. 

"Is  that  you,  Monsieur  Courte-Joie  ?"  asked  a  woman's 
voice,  and  at  the  same  moment  a  white  form  showed  itself 
above  the  hedge. 

"  Yes,  but  who  are  you  ?  " 

"Rosine,  Tinguy's  daughter;  don't  you  remember  me  ?" 

"  Rosine  !  "  exclaimed  Michel,  confirmed  in  the  thought 
that  Bertha  was  awaiting  him  by  the  sight  of  her  young 
maid. 

Courte-Joie  with  his  monkey-like  agility  slid  down 
Trigaud's  body,  and  went  to  the  hedge-bank  with  a  move- 


GIVING   THE    SLIP.  107 

ment  a  good  deal  like  that  of  a  frog's  jump,  leaving 
Trigaud  to  keep  guard  over  Michel. 

"  Pest,  little  one  !  "  he  cried,  "  the  night  is  so  dark  one 
may  well  take  white  for  gray.  But,"  he  added,  lowering 
his  voice,  "  why  are  not  you  at  home,  where  we  were  told 
to  find  you  ? " 

"  Because  there  are  people  in  the  cottage,  and  it  won't  do 
to  take  Monsieur  Michel  there." 

"  People  ?  Ah,  ça  !  those  damned  Blues  get  a  footing 
everywhere." 

"There  are  no  soldiers  there;  it  is  only  Jean  Oullier, 
who  has  spent  the  day  going  round  the  country,  and  has 
brought  a  few  of  the  Montaigu  men  with  him." 

"  What  are  they  doing  ?  " 

"Only  talking.  Go  in,  and  drink  a  cup  of  cider  with 
them,  and  warm  yourself  a  bit." 

"Well,  but  our  young  gentleman,  my  dear,  what  shall 
we  do  with  him  ?  " 

"Leave  him  with  me.  That  was  agreed  upon,  you  know, 
Maître  Cour  te- Joie." 

"  We  were  to  give  him  to  you  in  your  house,  where 
there  's  a  cellar  or  a  garret  to  put  him  in;  and  that 's  easy 
enough  to  do,  for  he  is  not  hard  to  manage,  poor  fellow,  — 
but  here  in  the  open  fields  there 's  a  risk  of  losing  him; 
he'll  slip  away  from   you  like  an  eel." 

"Pooh!"  said  Rosine,  with  a  smile  which  since  the 
deaths  of  her  father  and  brother  seldom  came  upon  her 
lips,  "  do  you  think  he  would  make  more  objection  to  fol- 
lowing a  pretty  girl  than  two  old  fellows  like  you  ?  " 

"  But  suppose  the  prisoner  carries  off  his  keeper  ?  "  said 
Courte-Joie,  still  dissatisfied. 

"Oh  !  don't  trouble  yourself  about  that;  I've  a  good 
foot,  a  good  eye,  and  an  honest  heart.  Besides,  Baron 
Michel  is  my  foster-brother;  we  've  known  each  other  this 
long  while,  and  I  know  he  is  no  more  capable  of  forcing 
the  virtue  of  a  girl  than  the  bolts  of  a  prison.  Besides, 
what  were  you  told  to  do  ?  " 


108  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Release  him  if  we  could  and  bring  him,  willingly  or 
unwillingly,  to  your  father's  house,  where  we  were  to 
find  you." 

"Well,  here  I  am,  and  there's  the  house;  the  bird  is 
out  of  his  cage;  that 's  all  that  was  asked  of  you,  wasn't 
it?" 

"Hang  it  !  yes,  I  believe  so." 

"Then,  good-night." 

"Look  here,  Rosine,  for  greater  security,  don't  you  want 
us  to  put  a  rope  round  his  paws  ?  "  said  Courte-Joie, 
sarcastically. 

"Thank  }rou,  no,  Maître  Courte-Joie,"  said  Rosine, 
going  toward  Michel;  "better  put  one  on  your  own 
tongue." 

Michel,  in  spite  of  the  distance  at  which  he  stood,  had 
distinguished  Rosine's  name  and  perceived,  as  we  have 
said,  the  connivance  which  evidently  existed  between  her 
and  his  captors.  He  was  more  and  more  confirmed  in  the 
belief  that  he  owed  his  deliverance  to  Bertha.  Courte- 
Joie' s  proceedings,  the  sort  of  violence  he  had  used 
toward  him,  by  means  of  his  auxiliary  Trigaud,  the  mys- 
tery in  which  the  tavern-keeper  had  wrapped  the  origin 
and  reason  of  his  devotion  to  a  man  whom  he  scarcely 
knew,  —  all  these  things  agreed  wonderfully  with  the  irrita- 
tion which  the  letter  he  had  sent  by  the  notary  was  cal- 
culated to  rouse  in  the  violent  and  irascible  heart  of  the 
young  girl. 

"  Oh  !  Rosine,  is  that  you  ?  "  he  exclaimed,  raising  his 
voice  as  soon  as  he  saw  through  the  darkness  his  foster- 
sister  coming  toward  him. 

"Good  !  "  cried  Rosine,  "you  are  not  like  that  wretch  of 
a  Courte-Joie,  who  did  n't  choose  to  recognize  me  at  first. 
You  knew  me  at  once,  didn't  you,  Monsieur  Michel  ?" 

"Yes,  of  course.     Tell  me,  Rosine,  where  is  she  ?" 

"Who?" 

"Mademoiselle  Bertha." 

"Mademoiselle  Bertha  ?" 


GIVING   THE   SLIP.  109 

"Yes." 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Rosine,  with  a  simplicity  which 
Michel  knew  to  be  sincere. 

"What  !  you  don't  know  ?  "  he  repeated. 

"I  suppose  she  is  at  Souday." 

"You  don't  know,  you  only  suppose  ?  " 

"  Bless  me  —  " 

"  Have  you  seen  her  to-day  ?  " 

"  No,  Monsieur  Michel  ;  I  only  know  that  she  was  to  go 
to  the  château  to-day  with  Monsieur  le  marquis;  but  I  've 
been  at  Nantes  myself." 

"  At  Nantes  !  "  cried  the  young  man,  "  were  you  at  Nantes 
this  morning  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  What  time  were  you  there  ?  " 

"It  was  striking  nine  as  we  crossed  the  pont  Rousseau." 

"  You  say  we  ?  " 

"Yes,  of  course." 

"  Then  you  were  not  alone  ?  " 

"Why,  no  !  I  went  there  to  accompany  Mademoiselle 
Mary;  it  was  sending  to  the  château  for  me  that  delayed 
her  journey." 

"  But  where  is  she  now,  —  Mademoiselle  Mary  ?  " 

"  Now,  this  minute  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"On  the  little  island  of  La  Jonchère;  and  that 's  where 
I  am  going  to  take  you.  But  how  queer  of  you  to  ask  me 
all  this,  Monsieur  Michel!" 

"  Are  you  really  going  to  take  me  to  her  ?  "  cried  Michel, 
beside  himself  with  joy.  "Then  come  along,  come  quick, 
my  little  Rosine." 

"Good!  and  that  old  fool  Courte-Joie,  who  said  I 
could  n't  manage  you  !     What  idiots  men  are  !  " 

"Rosine,  my  dear,  for  heaven's  sake  don't  lose  time." 

"  I  'm  ready  ;  but  had  n't  you  better  take  me  up  behind  ? 
and  then  we  can  go  faster." 

"Of  course  we  can,"  said  Michel,  whose  heart,  at  the 


110  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

mere  idea  of  seeing  Mary,  abjured  all  its  jealous  suspicions, 
and  glowed  with  the  thought  that  she  whom  he  loved  was 
really  the  one  who  had  so  effectually  managed  his  release. 
"  Come,  come  on  !  " 

"Here  I  am  !  give  me  your  hand,"  said  Rosine,  restiDg 
her  wooden  shoe  on  the  young  man's  foot.  Then,  making 
her  spring,  "There  !  I  'm  all  right,"  she  said,  settling  her- 
self.    "Now  then,  turn  to  the  right." 

The  young  man  obeyed,  with  no  more  thought  of  Courte- 
Joie  and  Trigaud  than  if  they  did  not  exist.  To  him, 
there  was  no  one  at  this  moment  in  the  world  but  Mary. 

"Rosine,"  he  said,  after  he  had  gone  a  little  way,  long- 
ing to  talk  about  Mary,  "how  did  mademoiselle  know  I 
was  arrested  by  the  gendarmes  ?  " 

"Bless  me!  I  should  have  to  tell  you  what  happened 
before  that,  Monsieur  Michel." 

"Tell  me  all  you  can,  my  dear,  good  Rosine;  only,  do 
speak  up.  I  'm  burning  with  impatience.  Ah  !  how  good 
it  is  to  be  free,"  cried  the  young  man;  "and  to  be  going 
to  Mary  !  " 

"Then  I  must  tell  you  that  mademoiselle  came  from 
Banlœuvre  to  Souday  very  early  this  morning;  she  bor- 
rowed my  Sunday  clothes  and  put  them  on,  and  then  she 
said  'Rosine,  you  are  to  go  with  me.'  " 

"Go  on,  Rosine,  do  !     I  'm  listening." 

"Well,  then  we  started,  with  eggs  in  our  baskets  like 
real  peasant-women.  At  Nantes  while  I  sold  eggs  made- 
moiselle did  her  errand." 

"  What  was  that  errand,  Rosine  ?  "  asked  Michel,  before 
whose  eyes  the  form  of  the  young  man  disguised  as  a 
peasant  now  loomed  like  a  spectre. 

"Oh,  that  I  don't  know,  Monsieur  Michel."  Then, 
without  pausing  to  notice  the  heavy  sigh  with  which 
Michel  received  her  words,  she  added  :  "  As  mademoiselle 
was  very  tired  we  asked  Monsieur  Loriot,  the  Lege  notary, 
to  drive  us  back  in  his  carriole.  We  stopped  half  way  to 
bait  the  horse  and  while  the  notary  was  gossiping  with 


GIVING   THE    SLIP.  Ill 

the  innkeeper  we  went  into  the  garden  to  get  away  from 
the  people  who  stared  at  mademoiselle,  —  who  is  really 
much  too  beautiful  for  a  peasant-woman.  There  she  read 
a  letter,  which  made  her  cry  dreadfully." 

"  A  letter  !  "  exclaimed  Michel. 

"Yes,  a  letter  Monsieur  Loriot  gave  her  as  we  came 
along." 

"My  letter!"  murmured  Michel;  "she  has  read  my 
letter  to  her  sister  !     Oh  !  " 

He  stopped  his  horse  abruptly,  not  knowing  whether  to 
rejoice  or  to  be  terrified  at  this  fact. 

"What's  the  matter?"  asked  Rosine,  who  of  course, 
did  not  understand  the  sudden  halt. 

"Nothing,  nothing,"  replied  Michel,  shaking  the  reins 
and  putting  the  horse  to  a  trot. 

Rosine  resumed  her  tale. 

"Well,  she  was  crying  over  the  letter  when  some  one 
called  us  from  the  other  side  of  the  hedge  :  it  was  Aubin 
Courte-Joie,  and  Trigaud  with  him.  He  told  us  your 
adventure,  and  asked  mademoiselle  what  he  had  better  do 
with  your  horse.  Then,  poor  young  lady,  she  seemed  to 
feel  worse  than  when  she  read  that  letter.  She  was  all 
upset,  and  said  such  a  lot  of  things  to  Courte-Joie  —  who, 
indeed,  is  under  great  obligations  to  Monsieur  le  mar- 
quis —  that  she  persuaded  him  to  rescue  you  from  the 
soldiers.  You  've  got  a  good  friend  in  her,  Monsieur 
Michel." 

Michel  listened  delightedly;  he  was  almost  beside  him- 
self with  joy  and  satisfaction,  and  would  gladly  have  paid 
a  piece  of  gold  for  every  syllable  Rosine  uttered.  He 
began  to  think  his  horse  went  much  too  slowly,  and  cutting 
a  branch  from  a  nut-tree  he  endeavored  to  excite  tlic 
animal  to  a  pace  in  keeping  with  the  pulses  of  his  heart. 

"But,"  he  asked,  "why  didn't  she  wait  for  me  in  your 
father's  cottage,  Rosine  ?  " 

"We  did  intend  to,  Monsieur  le  baron;  in  fact,  we  made 
Monsieur   Loriot   leave   us   thero,    telling   him  we  would 


112  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

walk  to  Souday.  Mademoiselle  had  charged  Courte-Joie 
to  take  you  to  my  house,  and  on  no  account  let  you  go  to 
Banlœuvre  until  she  had  seen  you;  but  as  ill-luck  would 
have  it,  the  cottage,  which  since  father's  death  has  been 
quite  deserted,  was  to-night  as  full  of  people  as  an  inn. 
Jean  Oullier  has  got  a  meeting  there  of  all  the  leaders  of 
his  district.  So  Mademoiselle  Mary  hid  herself  in  the 
barn,  and  asked  me  to  take  her  to  some  place  where  she 
could  see  you  alone  as  soon  as  Courte-Joie  brought  you. 
Here  we  are  on  a  level  with  the  mill  of  Saint-Philbert;  we 
shall  see  the  lake  of  Grand-Lieu  in  a  moment." 

Rosine' s  last  words  brought  a  more  emphatic  blow  with 
the  nut-stick  on  the  horse's  quarters  than  any  that  pre- 
ceded it.  Michel  felt  that  an  end  was  coming  to  the 
difficult  position  in  which  he  stood.  Mary  now  knew  the 
strength  of  his  love;  she  knew  that  it  was  powerful 
enough  to  make  him  reject  the  proffered  marriage;  she 
was  evidently  not  offended  by  it,  since  her  regard  for  him 
had  led  her  to  do  him  a  signal  service  and  even  to  risk  her 
reputation  by  doing  it.  Timid,  reserved,  and  backward  as 
Michel  was,  his  hopes  now  rose  to  the  level  of  these 
proofs,  as  he  thought  them,  of  Mary's  affection.  It  seemed 
to  him  impossible  that  a  young  girl  who  braved  public 
opinion,  her  father's  anger,  her  sister's  reproaches,  to 
secure  the  safety  of  a  man  whose  love  and  whose  hopes 
she  thoroughly  well  knew,  could  deny  herself  to  that  love 
or  disappoint  those  hopes.  He  saw  his  future  through  a 
misty  horizon  still,  but  the  mists  were  roseate  as  he  began 
to  descend  the  hill  which  locks  in  the  lake  of  Grand-Lieu 
to  the  southeast. 

"Are  we  getting  there  ?  "  he  said  to  Eosine. 

"Yes,"  she  replied,  slipping  from  the  horse's  back, 
"follow  me." 

Michel  dismounted  and  the  pair  entered  a  little  thicket 
of  osiers,  in  the  middle  of  which  stood  a  willow,  to  which 
Michel  tied  his  horse.  Then  they  pushed  their  way  for  a 
hundred  yards  or  so  through  the  flexible  branches,  until 


GIVING   THE    SLIP.  113 

they  came  out  upon  the  bank  of  a  sort  of  creek  which 
flowed  to  the  lake,  Rosine  jumped  into  a  little  boat  with 
a  flat  bottom.  Michel  offered  to  take  the  oars,  but  Rosine, 
knowing  that  he  was  a  novice  at  such  performances, 
pushed  him  back  and  took  her  seat  on  the  thwart  with 
an  oar  in  each  hand. 

"Ko,  no  !"  she  said,  "I  can  manage  better  than  you; 
I  have  often  rowed  my  poor  father  when  he  cast  his  nets 
into  the  lake." 

"But,"  said  Michel,  "are  you  sure  you  can  hit  the  island 
of  Jonchère  in  this  darkness  ?  " 

"Look!"  she  said,  without  turning  round,  "can't  you 
see  anything  on  the  water  ?  " 

"Yes,"  replied  the  young  man,  "I  see  what  looks  like  a 
star." 

"Well,  that  star  is  Mademoiselle  Mary,  who  is  holding  a 
lamp  in  her  hand.  She  must  have  heard  the  oars,  and  is 
coming  to  meet  us." 

Michel  would  gladly  have  flung  himself  into  the  sea  to 
precede  the  boat,  for,  in  spite  of  Rosine's  nautical  skill, 
it  progressed  very  slowly.  He  began  to  think  he  should 
never  get  over  the  distance  between  himself  and  that  light, 
which  was  now  seen  to  grow  brighter  and  brighter  every 
moment. 

But,  alas  !  contrary  to  the  hopes  which  Rosine  had 
inspired,  when  they  wrere  near  enough  to  the  island  to  dis- 
tinguish the  one  willow  which  adorned  it  Michel  did  not 
see  Mary  awaiting  him  on  the  shore  ;  the  glow  came  from 
a  fire  of  rushes  which  she  had  doubtless  lighted  and  left  to 
burn  slowly  out  upon  the  shore. 

"Rosine,"  cried  Michel,  aghast,  jumping  up  in  the 
boat  which  he  nearly  overset,  "I  don't  see  Mademoiselle 
Mary." 

"She  is  probably  in  the  duck-shooters'  hut,"  replied  the 
girl,  pulling  in  her  oars.  "Take  one  of  those  burning 
sticks  ;  you  '11  find  the  hut  on  the  other  side  toward  the 
offing." 

VOL.    II.  —  8 


114  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

Michel  sprang  ashore,  did  as  he  was  told,  and  hurried 
away  in  the  direction  of  the  hut. 

The  island  of  Jonchère  is  some  two  or  three  hundred 
yards  square.  It  is  covered  with  reeds  on  the  low  ground, 
which  is  overflowed  in  winter  by  the  waters  of  the  lake. 
About  fifty  lare  of  dry  laud  rise  above  the  level  of 

this  inundation;  on  this  elevation  old  Tinguy  had  built 
for  himself  a  little  hut,  to  which  he  came  on  winter 
nights  to  watch  for  wild-duck.  This  was  the  place  to 
which  Rosine  had  taken  Mary. 

"Whatever  his  hopes  might  be,  Michel's  heart  beat  almost 
to  bursting  when  he  came  in  sight  of  the  little  building. 
As  he  laid  his  hand  en  the  latch  of  the  door  the  oppression 
became  so  great  that  he  hesitated. 

During  that  momentary  pause  his  eyes  rested  on  a  pane 
of  glass  introduced  into  the  upper  half  of  the  entrance 
door,  through  which  it  was  possible  to  look  into  the  cabin. 
There  he  beheld  Mary,  sitting  on  a  heap  of  reeds,  her  head 
bending  forward  on  her  breast. 

By  the  feeble  light  of  a  lantern  which  was  placed  on  a 
stool  he  fancied  he  saw  two  tears  glittering  on  the  long, 
fringed  eyelashes  of  the  young  girl,  and  the  thought  that 
those  tears  were  shed  for  him  made  him  lose  all  diffidence. 
He  opened  the  door  and  rushed  to  her  feet,  crying  out: 

"  Mary,  Mary,  I  love  you  !  " 


MAKY    IS  VICTORIOUS.  115 


XI. 

MARY   IS    VICTORIOUS    AFTER   THE   MAXXER   OF    PYRRHUS. 

However  firm  Mary's  resolution  to  control  herself  may 
have  been,  Michel's  entrance  was  so  sudden,  his  voice 
vibrated  with  such  an  accent,  there  was  in  his  cry  so  much 
of  love,  so  passionate  a  prayer,  that  the  gentle  creature 
was  uuable  to  repress  her  own  emotion;  her  breast  heaved, 
her  fingers  trembled,  and  the  tears  the  young  baron  fancied 
he  saw  on  her  eyelids  detached  themselves  and  fell,  drop 
by  drop  like  liquid  pearls,  on  Michel's  hands  which  were 
grasping  hers.  The  poor  lover  himself  was  too  overcome 
with  his  own  emotion  to  notice  Mary's,  and  the  girl  had 
time  to  recover  herself  before  he  spoke.  She  gently  pushed 
him  aside  and  looked  about  her.  Michel's  eyes  followed 
Mary's  and  then  fixed  themselves  anxiously  and  inquir- 
ingly on  her  face. 

"  How  is  it  that  you  are  alone,  monsieur  ?  "  she  asked. 
"  Where  is  Rosine  ?  " 

"And  you,  Mary,"  said  the  young  man,  in  a  voice  full 
of  sadness,  "  how  is  it  that  you  are  not,  as  I  am,  full  of  the 
happiness  of  our  meeting  ?  " 

"Ah  !  my  friend,"  said  Mary,  dwelling  on  the  word, 
"you  have  no  cause  —  now  especially  —  to  doubt  the  inter- 
est I  take  in  your  safety." 

"No,"  said  Michel,  trying  to  regain  the  hand  she  had 
drawn  away  from  him.  "No,  indeed,  for  it  is  you  to 
whom  I  owe  my  liberty,  and  probably  my  life." 

"But,"  interrupted  Mary,  trying  to  smile,  "all  that  does 
not  make  me  forget  that  we  arc  alone  together.     Do  me 


116  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

the  kindness  to  call  Rosine,  for  there  are  certain  social 
conventions  I  do  not  wish  to  disregard." 

Michel  sighed  and  remained  on  his  knees,  while  two 
large  tears  escaped  his  eyelids.  Mary  turned  away  her 
head  that  she  might  not  see  them  ;  then  she  made  a  motion 
as  if  to  rise.  But  Michel  retained  her.  The  poor  lad  had 
not  enough  experience  of  the  human  heart  to  observe  that 
Mary  had  never  before  manifested  any  reluctance  to  be 
alone  with  him,  and  to  draw  from  her  present  action  a 
deduction  favorable  to  his  love.  On  the  contrary,  all  his 
beautiful  visions  went  up  in  smoke,  and  Mary  seemed  to 
him  even  colder  and  more  indifferent  than  she  had  been  of 
late. 

"Ah!"  he  cried,  in  a  tone  of  melancholy  reproach, 
"why  did  you  rescue  me  from  the  hands  of  the  soldiers  ? 
They  might  have  shot  me,  but  I  would  meet  that  fate 
rather  than  live  to  know  you  do  not  love  me  !  " 

"  Michel  !  Michel  !  "  cried  Mary. 

"Oh!"  he  exclaimed,  "I  repeat  it,  I  would  rather  die." 

"Don't  talk  so,  naughty  child  that  you  are  !  "  said  Mary, 
striving  to  assume  a  maternal  tone.  "Don't  you  see  that 
it  distresses  me  ?  " 

"  You  do  not  care  !  "  said  Michel. 

"You  cannot  doubt,"  continued  Mary,  "that  my  friend- 
ship for  you  is  true  and  most  sincere." 

"Alas  !  Mary,"  said  the  young  man,  sadly,  "that  feeling 
is  not  enough  to  satisfy  the  passion  that  consumes  my 
heart  ever  since  I  have  known  you;  I  do  feel  certain  of 
your  friendship,  but  my  heart  wants  more." 

Mary  made  a  supreme  effort. 

"My  friend,  what  you  ask  of  me,  Bertha  will  give  you; 
She  loves  you  as  you  wish  to  be  loved,  as  you  deserve  to  be 
loved  ;  "  said  the  poor  child,  in  a  trembling  voice,  striving 
to  put  her  sister's  name  as  a  barrier  between  herself  and 
the  man  she  loved. 

Michel  shook  his  head  and  sighed. 

"  Oh,  not  her  !  not  her  !  "  he  said. 


MARY   IS    VICTORIOUS.  117 

"Why  —  "  said  Mary  as  if  she  did  not  see  his  gesture 
of  refusal  or  hear  that  cry  from  his  heart.  "Why  did  you 
write  her  that  letter,  which  would  have  filled  her  with 
despair  had  it  reached  her  ?  " 

"That  letter;  then  it  was  you  who  received  it  ?  " 

"Alas  !  yes,"  said  Mary,  "and  painful  as  it  was  to  me, 
it  is  most  fortunate  that  I  did  so." 

"  Did  you  read  it  through  ?  "  asked  Michel. 

"Yes,"  said  the  young  girl,  lowering  her  eyes  before  the 
supplicating  glance  with  which  he  enfolded  her  as  he  asked 
the  question.  "Yes,  I  read  it  —  all;  and  it  is  because  1 
did  so,  dear  friend,  that  I  wished  to  speak  to  you  before 
you  see  my  sister  again." 

"  But,  Mary,  do  you  not  see  that  that  letter  is  truth  itself 
from  the  first  line  to  the  last,  and  that  if  I  love  Bertha  at 
all  it  can  only  be  as  a  sister  ?  " 

"No,  no,"  cried  Mary;  "I  only  know  that  my  future 
would  be  horrible  if  I  caused  unhappiness  to  my  poor 
sister  whom  I  love  so  well." 

"But,"  said  Michel,  "  what  do  you  ask  of  me  ?  " 

"I  ask  you,"  replied  Mary,  clasping  her  hands,  "to 
sacrifice  a  feeling  which  has  not  had  time  to  strike  deep 
roots  into  your  heart;  I  ask  you  to  forget  a  fancy  nothing 
justifies,  to  renounce  an  attachment  which  can  have  no 
good  result  for  you  and  must  be  fatal  to  all  three  of  us." 

"Ask  my  life,  Mary;  I  can  kill  myself,  or  let  myself  be 
killed,  —  nothing  is  easier;  but  to  ask  me  not  to  love  you! 
Good  God  !  what  would  my  poor  heart  be  if  deprived  of  its 
love  for  you  ?  " 

"And  yet  it  must  be  so,  dear  Michel,"  said  Mary,  in  her 
winning  voice;  "for  never  —  no  never  —  will  you  obtain 
from  me  a  word  of  encouragement  for  the  love  you  speak 
of  in  that  letter.     I  have  sworn  it." 

"  To  whom,  Mary  ?  " 

"To  God  and  to  myself." 

"Oh  !"  exclaimed  Michel,  sobbing,  "and  I  dreamed  sin; 
loved  me  !  " 


118  THE    LAST   VENDUE. 

Mary  thought  that  the  more  warmth  he  put  into  his 
words  and  actions,  the  colder  it  behooved  her  to  be. 

"  All  that  I  have  now  said  to  you,  my  friend,"  she  con- 
tinued, "is  dictated  not  only  by  common-sense,  but  by  the 
strong  interest  I  feel  in  your  future.  If  I  were  indifferent 
to  you,  I  should  simply  express  my  feelings  and  let  the 
matter  end  ;  but  as  a  friend  I  cannot  do  so,  —  as  a  friend, 
I  say  to  you,  Michel,  forget  the  woman  who  can  never  be 
yours  and  love  the  woman  who  loves  you  and  to  whom  you 
are  virtually  betrothed." 

"  Oh,  but  you  know  very  well  how  that  betrothal,  as  you 
call  it,  took  me  by  surprise;  you  know  that  in  making  that 
proposal  Petit-Pierre  mistook  my  feelings.  Those  feel- 
ings you  well  know.  I  expressed  them  to  you  that  night 
when  the  general  and  the  soldiers  were  at  the  château. 
You  did  not  repulse  them;  I  felt  your  hands  press  mine; 
I  knelt  at  your  feet,  Mary,  as  I  do  now;  you  bent  your 
head  to  mine;  your  hair,  your  beautiful,  adored  hair 
touched  my  forehead.  I  did  wrong  not  to  tell  Petit- 
Pierre  who  it  was  I  loved;  but  how  could  I  expect  what 
has  happened  ?  It  never  crossed  my  mind  she  could  sup- 
pose I  loved  any  one  but  Mary.  It  is  the  fault  of  my 
timidity,  which  I  curse  ;  but,  after  all,  it  is  not  so  grievous 
a  fault  that  it  ought  to  separate  me  forever  from  the  woman 
I  love,  and  chain  my  life  to  one  I  do  not  love." 

"Alas  !  my  friend,  the  fault  that  seems  to  you  so 
light  seems  to  me  irreparable.  Whatever  happens,  and 
even  though  you  repudiate  the  promise  made  in  your 
name  and  in  which  you  acquiesced  by  silence,  you  must 
understand  that  I  can  never  be  yours,  for  I  will  never 
rend  the  heart  of  my  beloved  sister  with  the  sight  of 
my  happiness." 

"  Good  God  !  "  cried  Michel,  "  how  wretched  I  am  !  " 

He  put  his  face  in  his  hands  and  burst  into  tears. 

"Yes,"  said  Mary,  "I  know  you  suffer  now;  but  take 
courage.  Call  up  your  virtup,  your  courage,  my  friend. 
Listen  willingly  to  my  advice;  this  feeling  will,  little  by 


MARY   IS   VICTORIOUS.  Hi) 

little,  be  effaced  from  your  heart.  If  necessary,  I  will  go 
away  for  a  time  that  you  may  cure  yourself." 

"Go  away!  separate  yourself  from  me!  Ko,  Mary, 
never,  never  !  no,  don't  leave  me,  for  I  swear  that  the  day 
you  leave,  I  leave;  where  you  go,  I  go.  Good  God  !  what 
would  become  of  me,  deprived  of  your  dear  presence  ?  No, 
no,  no;  don't  go,  I  implore  you,  Mary." 

"So  be  it;  T  will  stay,  but  only  to  help  you  to  do  what- 
ever may  be  painful  and  sad  in  your  duty;  and  when  that 
is  done,  when  you  are  happy,  when  you  are  Bertha's 
husband  —  " 

"Never  !  never  !  "  muttered  Michel. 

"Yes,  my  friend,  for  Bertha  is  more  fitted  to  be  your 
wife  than  I  am  ;  her  love  for  you,  —  and  I  can  swear  this 
for  I  have  heard  her  express  it,  —  is  greater  than  you  sup- 
pose; her  tenderness  will  satisfy  the  craving  for  love  which 
now  consumes  you,  and  my  sister's  strength  and  energy, 
which  I  do  not  possess,  will  clear  your  path  in  life  of  the 
thorns  and.  briers  you  might  not  of  yourself  be  able  to  put 
aside.  So,  if  there  is  really  a  sacrifice  on  your  part,  that 
sacrifice,  believe  me,  will  be  well-rewarded." 

In  saying  these  words  Mary  affected  a  calmness  which 
was  far  indeed  from  being  in  her  heart,  the  real  condition 
of  which  was  betrayed  by  her  paleness  and  agitation.  As 
for  Michel,  he  listened  in  feverish  agitation. 

"Don't  talk  so  !  "  he  cried  as  she  ended.  "Do  you  sup- 
pose the  current  of  human  affections  is  a  thing  to  be 
managed  and  directed  as  we  please,  like  a  river  which  an 
engineer  forces  between  the  banks  of  a  canal,  or  a  vine 
which  the  gardener  trains  as  he  will  ?  No,  no;  I  tell  you 
again,  I  repeat  it  and  I  will  repeat  it  a  hundred  times, 
—  it  is  you,  you  alone  whom  I  love,  Mary.  It  would  be 
impossible  for  my  heart  to  name  any  other  name  than  yours, 
even  if  I  wished  it,  and  I  don't  wish  it.  My  God  !  my  God  !  " 
continued  the  young  man,  flinging  up  his  arms  to  heaven 
with  a  look  of  agonized  despair;  "what  would  become  of 
me  if  I  saw  you  the  wife  of  another  man  ?  " 


120  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Michel,"  said  Mary,  with  passionate  fervor,  "if  you 
will  do  as  I  ask  you,  I  swear  by  all  that  is  most  sacred 
that,  as  I  cannot  be  your  wife,  I  will  belong  to  none  but 
God;  I  will  never  marry.  All  my  affection,  my  tender- 
ness shall  remain  yours;  and  this  affection  will  not  be  of 
the  vulgar  kind  that  years  destroy  or  a  mere  chance  kills. 
It  will  be  the  deep,  unutterable  affection  of  a  sister  for  a 
brother;  it  will  be  a  gratitude  which  will  forever  bind  me 
to  you.  I  shall  owe  to  you  the  happiness  of  my  sister,  and 
all  my  life  shall  be  spent  in  blessing  you." 

"Your  love  for  your  sister  misleads  you,  Mary,"  replied 
Michel.  "You  think  only  of  her;  you  do  not  think  of  me 
when  you  seek  to  condemn  me  to  the  horrible  torture  of 
being  chained,  for  life,  to  a  woman  I  do  not  love.  Oh, 
Mary  !  it  is  cruel  of  you,  —  you  for  whom  I  would  give  my 
life,  —  it  is  cruel  to  ask  of  me  a  thing  to  which  I  can  never 
resign  myself." 

"Oh,  yes,  you  can,  my  friend,"  persisted  the  girl;  "you 
can  surely  resign  yourself  to  what,  though  it  may  be  the 
result  of  fate,  is  also  most  assuredly,  a  generous  and  mag- 
nanimous action;  you  can  resign  yourself  because  you 
know  that  God  would  never  suffer  a  sacrifice  like  that  to 
go  unrewarded,  and  the  reward  will  be  —  yes,  it  will  be  — 
the  happiness  of  two  poor  orphans." 

"Oh,  Mary,"  said  Michel,  quite  beside  himself,  "don't 
talk  to  me  like  that.  Oh,  it  is  plain  that  you  don't 
know  what  it  is  to  love  !  You  tell  me  to  give  you  up! 
but  remember  that  you  are  my  heart,  my  soul,  my  life,  — 
it  is  simply  asking  me  to  tear  my  heart  from  my  breast, 
forswear  my  soul,  blast  my  happiness,  dry  up  my  very 
existence  at  its  source.  You  are  the  light  for  which  and 
by  which  the  world,  to  my  eyes,  is  a  world;  the  day  you 
cease  to  shine  upon  my  life  I  shall  fall  into  a  gulf  the 
darkness  of  which  horrifies  me.  I  swear  to  you,  Mary, 
that  since  I  have  known  you,  since  that  moment  when  I 
first  saw  you  and  felt  your  hands  cooling  my  wounded 
forehead,  you  have  been  so  identified  with  my  being  that 


MARY   IS   VICTORIOUS.  121 

there  is  not  a  thought  in  my  mind  that  does  not  belong  to 
you,  all  that  is  within  me  refers  to  you,  and  if  my  heart 
were  to  lose  you,  it  would  cease  to  beat  as  if  the  principle 
of  life  were  taken  from  it.  You  see,  therefore,  that  it  is 
impossible  I  should  do  as  you  ask." 

"And  yet,"  cried  Mary,  in  a  paroxysm  of  despair, 
"Bertha  loves  you,  and  I  do  not  love  you." 

"Ah  !  if  you  do  not  love  me,  Mary,  if,  with  your  eyes  in 
my  eyes,  your  hands  in  my  hands,  you  have  the  courage  to 
say,  'I  do  not  love  you,'  then,  indeed,  all  is  over." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that, —  how  is  it  all  over  ?  " 

"Simply  enough,  Mary.  As  truly  as  those  stars  in 
heaven  see  the  chastity  of  my  love  for  you,  as  truly  as  that 
God  who  is  above  those  stars  knows  that  my  love  for  you 
is  immortal,  Mary,  neither  you  nor  your  sister  shall  ever 
see  me  again." 

"Oh,  don't  say  that,  Michel." 

"  I  have  but  to  cross  the  lake  and  mount  my  horse,  which 
is  there  among  the  osiers,  and  gallop  to  the  first  guard- 
house; once  there,  I  have  only  to  say,  {I  am  Baron  Michel 
de  la  Logerie,  '  to  be  shot  in  three  days."  Mary  gave  a 
cry.  "And  that  is  what  I  will  do,"  added  Michel,  "as 
surely  as  the  stars  look  down  upon  us,  and  God  himself  is 
above  them." 

The  young  man  made  a  movement  to  rush  from  the  hut. 
Mary  threw  herself  before  him  and  clasped  him  round  the 
body,  but  her  strength  gave  way,  her  hold  loosened,  and 
she  slipped  to  his  feet. 

"Michel,"  she  murmured,  "if  you  love  me  as  you  say 
you  do,  you  will  not  refuse  my  entreaty.  In  the  name  of 
your  love  I  implore  you,  — ■  I  whom  you  say  you  love,  —  do 
not  kill  my  sister,  grant  me  her  life;  grant  her  happiness 
to  my  prayers  and  tears.  God  will  bless  you  for  it;  and 
every  day  my  soul  shall  rise  to  Him,  imploring  happiness 
for  one  who  has  helped  me  to  save  a  sister  I  love  better 
than  myself.  Michel,  forget  me,  —  I  ask  it  of  your  mercy, 
Michel,  — do  not  reduce  my  Bertha  to  despair." 


122  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Oh,  Mary,  Mary,  you  are  cruel  !  "  cried  the  young  man, 
grasping  his  hair  with  both  hands;  "you  are  asking  rny 
very  life.     I  shall  die  of  this." 

"Courage,  friend,  courage,"  said  the  girl,  weakening 
herself. 

"I  could  have  courage  for  all,  except  renouncing  you; 
hut  the  simple  thought  of  that  makes  me  feebler  than  a 
child,  — more  despairing  than  a  soul  in  hell." 

"Michel,  my  friend,  will  you  do  as  I  ask  of  you?" 
stammered  Mary,  her  voice  half  drowned  in  tears. 

"I  — I  —  " 

He  was  about  to  answer  that  he  would,  but  he  stopped. 

"  Ah,  "  he  cried,  "  if  you  suffered  as  I  suffer  !  " 

At  that  cry  of  utter  selfishness  and  yet  of  infinite  love, 
Mary,  beside  herself,  panting  for  breath,  half  maddened, 
clasped  him  in  her  nervous  arms  and  said  in  a  sobbing 
voice  :  — 

"  Would  it  comfort  you  to  know  that  my  heart  is  torn 
with  an  anguish  like  yours  ?  " 

"  Yes,  yes  ;  oh,  yes  !  " 

"  Would  hell  be  a  paradise  if  I  were  by  your  side  ?  " 

"An  eternity  of  suffering  with  you,  Mary,  and  I  could 
bear  all." 

"Well,  then,"  cried  Mary,  losing  control  of  herself;  "be 
satisfied,  cruel  man  !  your  sufferings,  your  anguish  —  I  feel 
them  all.  Like  you,  I  am  dying  of  despair  at  the  sacrifice 
our  duty  is  wringing  from  us." 

"  Then  you  love  me,  Mary  ?  "  said  the  young  man. 

"Oh,  faithless  heart  !"  she  cried;  "oh,  faithless  man, 
who  can  see  my  tears,  my  tortures,  and  cannot  see  my 
love  !  " 

"  Mary,  Mary  !  "  exclaimed  Michel,  staggering,  breath- 
less, mad,  and  drunken  at  once;  "after  killing  me  with 
grief,  will  you  kill  me  with  joy  ?  " 

"  Yes,  yes,  I  love  you  !  "  repeated  Mary.  "  I  love  you  ! 
I  needs  must  say  the  words  that  have  choked  me  long. 
Yes,  I  love  you  as  you  love  me.     I  love  you  so  well  that 


MARY    IS    VICTORIOUS.  123 

when  I  think  of  the  sacrifice  we  both  must  make,  death 
would  be  dear  to  me  could  it  come  at  this  moment  when 
I  tell  you  the  truth." 

Saying  these  words  in  spite  of  herself,  and  as  if  attracted 
by  magnetic  power,  Mary  approached  her  face  to  that  of 
the  young  man,  who  looked  at  her  with  the  eyes  of  nue 
whom  a  sudden  hallucination  has  flung  into  ecstasy;  her 
blond  hair  touched  his  forehead;  their  breaths  mingled 
and  intoxicated  both.  As  if  overcome  by  this  amorous 
effluence,  Michel  closed  his  eyes,  his  lips  touched  Mary's, 
and  she,  exhausted  by  her  struggle  so  long  sustained 
against  herself,  yielded  to  the  impulse  that  moved  her. 
Their  lips  united,  and  thus  they  stayed  for  several  moments, 
lost  in  a  gulf  of  dolorous  felicity. 

Mary  was  the  first  to  recover  herself.  She  rose  quickly, 
pushed  Michel  away  from  her,  and  began  to  cry  bitterly. 

At  that  instant  Itosine  entered  the  hut. 


124  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 


XII. 

BARON    MICHEL    FINDS    AN    OAK    INSTEAD    OF    A    REED    ON 
WHICH    TO    LEAN. 

Mary  felt  that  Rosine' s  coming  was  a  help  sent  to  her 
from  above.  Alone,  without  other  support  than  her  own 
heart,  which  had  yielded  so  utterly,  she  felt  herself  at  the 
mercy  of  her  lover.  Seeing  Rosine,  she  ran  to  her  and 
caught  her  hand. 

"  What  is  it,  my  child  ?  "  she  said.  "  What  have  you 
come  to  say  ?  " 

She  passed  her  hands  over  her  forehead  and  eyes  to 
efface,  if  possible,   the  signs  of  her  emotion. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  Rosine,  "I  think  I  hear  a  boat." 

"  In  which  direction  ?  " 

"Toward  Saint-Philbert." 

"I  thought  your  father's  boat  was  the  only  one  on  the 
lake." 

"No,  mademoiselle,  the  miller  of  Grand-Lieu  has  one; 
it  is  half -rotten  to  be  sure,  but  some  one  has  no  doubt 
taken  it  to  come  over  here." 

"Well,"  said  Mary,  "I'll  go  with  you  and  see  who 
it  is  ?  " 

Then,  without  paying  the  slightest  heed  to  the  young 
man,  who  stretched  out  his  arms  to  her  in  a  supplicating 
way,  Mary,  who  was  not  sorry  to  leave  Michel  in  order 
to  gather  up  her  courage,  sprang  from  the  hut.  Rosine 
followed  her. 

Michel  was  left  alone,  completely  crushed;  he  felt  that 
happiness  had  escaped  him,  and  he  doubted  the  possibility 


MICHEL   FINDS   AN   OAK   TO   LEAN   ON.  125 

of  recovering  it.  Never  again  would  another  such  scene 
bring  another  such  avowal. 

When  Mary  returned,  after  listening  in  all  directions 
without  hearing  anything  more  than  the  lapping  of  the 
water  on  the  shore,  she  found  Michel  sitting  on  the  reeds 
with  his  head  in  his  hands.  She  thought  him  calm,  — he 
was  only  depressed;  she  went  to  him.  Michel,  hearing 
her  step,  raised  his  head,  and  seeing  her  as  reserved  on  her 
return  as  she  was  emotional  before  she  left  him,  he  merely 
held  out  his  hand  and  shook  his  head  sadly. 

"  Oh,  Mary,  Mary  !  "  he  said. 

"  Well,  my  friend  ?  "  she  replied. 

"Repeat  to  me,  for  Heaven's  sake  —  repeat  to  me  those 
dear  words  you  said  just  now  !  Tell  me  again  that  you 
love  me  !  " 

"I  will  repeat  it,  dear  friend,"  said  Mary,  sadly;  "and 
as  often  as  you  wish  it,  if  the  conviction  that  my  love  is 
watching  tenderly  your  sufferings  and  your  efforts  can  in 
any  way  inspire  you  with  courage  and  resolution." 

"  What  !  "  cried  Michel,  wringing  his  hands,  "  are  you 
still  thinking  of  that  cruel  separation  ?  Can  you  expect  me, 
with  the  knowledge  of  my  love  for  you,  and  the  certainty 
of  your  love  for  me, —  can  you  still  expect  me  to  give  myself 
to  another  woman  ?  " 

"I  expect  us  both  to  accomplish  the  duty  that  lies  before 
us,  my  friend.  That  is  why  I  do  not  regret  having  opened 
my  heart  to  you.  I  hope  that  my  example  will  teach  you 
to  suffer,  and  inspire  you  with  resignation  to  the  will  of 
God.  A  fatal  chain  of  circumstances,  which  I  deplore  as 
much  as  you,  Michel,  has  separated  us;  we  cannot  belong 
to  each  other." 

"But  why  not?  I  have  made  no  pledge.  I  never  said 
one  word  of  love  to  Mademoiselle  Bertha." 

"No;  but  she  told  me  that  she  loved  you.  I  received 
her  confidence  as  long  ago  as  that  evening  when  you  met 
her  at  Tinguy's  cottage,  and  walked  home  with  her." 

"But  whatever  I  said  to  her  that  night  that  may  have 


[■2(\  THF.    I. Asr    VENDE» 

seemed  tender  referred  to  you,"  said  the  luckless  young 
man. 

"Ah!  friend,  a  heart  which  bends  is  soon  filled;  poor 
Bertha  deceived  herself.  As  we  returned  to  the  chateau 
that  night  and  1  was  thinking  in  the  depths  of  my  heart, 
•I  love  him."  she  said  those  very  words  to  me  aloud.  To 
love  you  is  only  to  suffer,  but  to  be  yours,  Michel,  would 
be  a  crime." 

"Ah!   my  God.  my  Cod!" 

■•  Yes.  Gk)d  will  give  us  strength,  Michel,—  the  God  whom 
we  invoke.  Lei  us  hear  heroically  the  consequences  of 
our  mutual  timidity.  I  do  not.  blame  you  for  yours,  lie 
sure  oï  that;  hut.  at  Least,  spare  me  the  remorse  o(  feeling 
that  1  have  made  my  sister's  unhappiness  without  benefit 
or  advantage  to  myself." 

•'But.*'  said  Michel,  "your  project  is  senseless;  the  very 
thing  you  seek  to  avoid  would  surely  come  of  it.  Sooner 
or  later  Bertha  must  disoover  that  1  do  not  love  her,  and 
then  —  " 

"Listen  to  me.  friend."  interrupted  Mary,  laying  her 
hand  on  Michel's  arm:  "though  very  young.  1  have  strong 
convictions  on  what  is  called  love.  My  education,  the 
direct  opposite  of  yours,  has,  like  yours,  its  drawbacks, 
but  also  some  advantages.  One  of  these  advantages  —  a 
terrible  one.  1  admit — is  a  practical  view  of  realities. 
Accustomed  to  hear  conversations  in  which  the  past  dis- 
guised nothing  of  its  weakness,  f  know,  through  what  I 
have  learned  from  my  father's  life,  that  nothing  is  more 
fugitive  than  the  feelings  which  you  now  express  to  me. 
I  therefore  hope  that  Bertha  will  have  taken  my  place  in 
your  heart  before  she  has  time  to  perceive  your  indiffer- 
ence. That  is  my  hope,  Michel,  and  I  pray  you  not  to 
destroy  it." 

"You  ask  an  impossibility,  Mary." 

"Well,  if  it  must  be  so,  it  must.  You  are  free  not  to 
keep  the  engagement  which  binds  you  to  my  sister:  free  to 
reject  the  prayer  I  make  to  you  on   my  knees;   it  will   be 


/M.I.    PIHJ  :■<    TO   LE  127 

only;      '         round  and  shame  infli  poor  girls 

already  unjustly  treated  by  the  world.  Bertha 

will  rafter,  f  know  that;  but  at  lea      I  1  .suffer  with 

ad  with  *  b  re,  Michel, 

our  sufferings,   increased  by  each  seeing  that  of  the 
other,  end  by  • 

■■  I   implore  I  conjure  you  do  not  say  such 

words, — they  break  my  heart." 

"Listen,   Michel;   the   hours  are  •    the  night  is 

nearly  gone,  day  will  soon  be  b< 

and  my  resolution  is  .  We]  a  dreamed 

un  which  we  must  both  forget.     1  have  told  you  how 
you  can  deserve,  —  I  will  not  say  my  love,  for  you  have 
it,  — but  the  eternal  gratitude  of  your  poor  Mary.     1 
to  you,"  she  added,  in  a  deeper  tone  of  supplication  than 

ed;  "  f  you  that  if  you  will  di 

yourself  to  the  happine  ter,  I  will  have  but  one 

;it,  one  prayer,  in  my  heart,  —  that  of  beseeching  God 
you  here  If,  on  the 

you  refuse  me,  Michel,  if  tart  cannot 

to  the  level  of  my  i  ion,  you  must  renounce  the 

sight  of  us,  you  must  go  f  c  away;  for,   I  repeat,  and  J 
i    it  before   God,    1    v.;]!   never,   my   friend,   ftif&r  be 
yours  !  " 

"  Mary,    Mary,  •  • 

.  at  least,     'i  en." 

"To  leave  you  any  hope  would  be  doing  wrong,  Michel; 
and  since  the  certainty  that  I  share  your  sufferii 
given  you  promised  m<  old —  the  fir: 

and   i  hich  strength  I   bit- 

terly regret,  the  '  nade  this  night. 

Ided,  passing  her  hand  acr< 

r 

you  a  request,  a  prayer;  you  will  not  listen  to  it; 
there  is  nothing  left  but  to  bid  \  ■■■}]." 

y  !     Oh,  rather  death  '.     I  will 
hat  you  exact  —  " 


128  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

He  stopped,  unable  to  say  the  words. 

"I  exact  nothing,"  said  Mary.  "I  have  asked  you  on 
my  knees  not  to  break  two  hearts  instead  of  one,  and,  on 
my  knees,  I  once  more  ask  it." 

And  she  did,  in  fact,  slip  down  to  the  feet  of  the  young 
man. 

"Rise,  rise  !"  he  cried.  "Yes,  Mary,  yes,  I  will  do 
what  you  want.  But  you  must  be  there,  you  must  never 
leave  me;  and  when  I  suffer  too  much  I  must  draw  my 
strength  and  courage  from  your  eyes.  Promise  me  that, 
Mary,   and  I  will  obey  you." 

"Thank  you,  friend,  thank  you.  That  which  gives  me 
strength  to  ask  and  accept  this  sacrifice,  is  my  conviction 
that  nothing  is  lost  for  your  happiness  as  well  as  Bertha's." 

"But  yours,  yours  ?  "  cried  the  young  man. 

"Do  not  think  of  me,  Michel."  A  groan  escaped  him. 
"God,"  she  continued,  "has  given  consolations  to  sacrifice 
of  which  the  soul  knows  nothing  till  it  sounds  those 
depths.  As  for  me,"  said  Mary,  veiling  her  eyes  with  her 
hand  as  though  she  feared  they  might  deny  her  words, 
"I  shall  endeavor  to  find  the  sight  of  your  happiness 
sufficient  for  me." 

"  Oh,  my  God,  my  God  !  "  cried  Michel,  wringing  his 
hands;  "is  it  all  over, —  am  I  condemned  to  death?" 

And  he  flung  himself  face  down  upon  the  floor. 

At  that  moment  Rosine  entered. 

"Mademoiselle,"  she  said,  "the  day  is  breaking." 

"What  is  the  matter,  Rosine  ?"  asked  Mary;  "you  are 
trembling!  " 

"I  am  sure  I  heard  oars  in  the  lake;  and  just  now  I 
heard  footsteps  behind  me." 

"Footsteps  on  this  lonely  islet  !  you  are  dreaming, 
child." 

"  I  think  so  myself,  for  I  have  searched  everywhere  and 
seen  no  one." 

"Now  we  must  go,"  said  Mary. 

A  sob  from  Michel  made  her  turn  to  him. 


MICHEL  FINDS  AN  OAK  TO  LEAN  ON.       129 

"We  must  go  alone,  my  friend,"  she  said,  "but  in  an 
hour  Rosine  shall  come  back  for  you  with  the  boat.  Don't 
forget  what  you  have  promised  me.  I  rely  upon  your 
courage." 

"Rely  upon  my  love,  Mary,"  he  said.  "The  proof  you 
exact  is  terrible;  the  task  you  impose  immense.  God 
grant  I  may  not  fail  under  the  burden  of  it." 

"Remember,  Michel,  that  Bertha  loves  you,  that  she 
cherishes  every  glance  you  give  her.  Remember,  too,  that 
I  would  rather  die  than  have  her  discover  the  true  state  of 
your  heart." 

"  Oh,  my  God  !  my  God  !  "  murmured  the  young  man. 

"  Courage  !  courage  !     Farewell,  friend  !  " 

Profiting  by  the  moment  when  Rosine  turned  to  open 
the  door  and  look  outside,  Mary  laid  a  kiss  on  Michel's 
forehead.  It  was  a  different  kiss  from  that  she  had  given 
him  half  an  hour  earlier.  The  first  was  the  jet  of  flame, 
which  darts  from  the  heart  of  the  lover  to  that  of  the  loved 
one;  the  second  was  the  chaste  farewell  of  a  sister  to  a 
brother. 

Michel  understood  the  difference,  and  it  wrung  his  heart. 
Tears  sprang  again  to  his  eyes.  He  went  with  the  two 
young  girls  to  the  shore,  and  when  he  had  seen  them  in  the 
boat  he  sat  down  upon  a  stone  and  watched  the  little  bark 
till  it  was  lost  in  the  morning  mist  that  was  rising  from 
the  lake. 

The  sound  of  oars  still  lingered  in  his  ear;  he  was  lis- 
tening, as  though  to  some  funeral  knell  which  told  him 
that  his  illusions  were  vanishing  like  phantom  dreams, 
when  a  hand  was  lightly  laid  upon  his  shoulder.  He 
turned  and  saw  Jean  Oullier  close  beside  him. 

The  Vendéan's  face  was  sadder  than  usual,  but  it  seemed 
to  have  lost  the  expression  of  hatred  which  Michel  had  so 
often  seen  there.  His  eyelids  were  moist,  and  two  big 
drops  were  hanging  to  the  beard  which  formed  :i  collar 
round  his  face.  Were  they  dew  ?  Could  they  be  tears 
from  the,  eyes  of  the  old  follower  of  Charette  ? 

VOL.   II.  —  9 


130  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

He  held  out  his  hand  to  Michel,  a  thing  he  had  never 
done  before.  The  latter  looked  at  him  in  surprise,  and 
took,  with  some  hesitation,  the  hand  that  was  offered  to 
him. 

"I  heard  all,"  said  Jean  Oullier. 

Michel  sighed  and  dropped  his  head. 

"Noble  hearts  !  both  of  you,"  said  the  Vendéan;  "but 
you  were  right.  It  is  a  terrible  task  that  poor  child  has  set 
you.  May  God  reward  her  devotion  !  As  for  you,  when 
you  feel  that  you  are  weakening,  let  me  know,  Monsieur 
de  la  Logerie,  and  you  '11  find  out  one  thing,  and  that  is,  if 
Jean  Oullier  hates  his  enemies  he  can  also  love  those  he 
does  love." 

"Thank  you,"  replied  Michel. 

"Come,  come  !  "  continued  Jean  Oullier,  "no  more  tears; 
it  is  n't  manly  to  cry.  If  necessary,  I  '11  try  to  make  that 
iron  head,  called  Bertha,  listen  to  reason;  though  I  admit 
to  you,  in  advance,  it  is  n't  easy." 

"But  in  case  she  won't  hear  reason,  there  is  one  thing 
else  you  can  help  me  in,  —  an  easy  thing." 

"What  is  that?" 

"To  get  myself  killed." 

Michel  said  it  so  simply  that  it  was  evidently  the 
expression  of  his  thought. 

"Oh,  oh  !  "  muttered  Jean  Oullier;  "he  really  looks,  my 
faith,  as  if  he  'd  do  it."  Then  he  added  aloud,  addressing 
the  young  man:  "Well,  so  be  it;  if  the  necessity  comes, 
we  '11  see  about  it." 

This  promise,  melancholy  as  it  was,  gave  Michel  a  little 
courage. 

"Now,  then,"  said  the  old  Chouan,  "come  with  me. 
You  can't  stay  here.  I  have  a  miserable  boat,  but  by  tak- 
ing some  precautions  I  think  we  can  both  of  us  get  safely 
ashore." 

"But  Rosine  was  to  return  in  an  hour  and  row  me  over," 
objected  the  young  man. 

"  She  will  come  on  a  useless  errand,  that 's  all  ;  "  replied 


MICHEL   FINDS   AN   OAK   TO   LEAN   ON.  131 

Jean  Oullier.  "It  will  teach  her  to  gossip  on  the  high- 
road about  other  people's  affairs  as  she  did  with  you 
to-night." 

After  these  words,  which  explained  how  Jean  Oullier 
came  to  visit  the  island  of  Jonchère,  Michel  followed  him 
to  the  boat,  and  presently,  avoiding  the  road  taken  by  Marj 
and  Rosine,  they  took  to  the  open  country  in  the  direction 
of  Saint-Philbert. 


132  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 


XIII. 

THE   LAST   KNIGHTS    OF    ROYALTY. 

As  Gaspard  had  clearly  foreseen,  and  as  lie  had  predicted 
to  Petit-Pierre  at  the  farm-house  of  Banlceuvre,  the  post- 
ponement of  the  uprising  till  the  4th  of  June  was  a  fatal 
blow  to  the  projected  insurrection.  In  spite  of  every  effort 
and  every  activity  on  the  part  of  the  leaders  of  the  Legiti- 
mist party,  who  all,  like  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  his  daugh- 
ters, and  adherents,  went  themselves  to  the  villages  of 
their  divisions  to  carry  the  order  for  delay,  it  was  too  late 
to  get  the  information  sent  to  the  country  districts,  and 
these  conflicting  plans  defeated  the  whole  movement. 

In  the  region  about  Niort,  Fontenay,  and  Luçon,  the 
royalists  assembled;  Diot  and  Robert,  at  the  head  of  their 
organized  bands,  issued  from  the  forests  of  the  Deux-Sèvres, 
to  serve  as  kernel  to  the  movement.  This  was  instantly 
made  known  to  the  military  leaders  of  the  various  sur- 
rounding detachments,  who  at  once  assembled  their  forces, 
marched  to  the  parish  of  Amailloux,  defeated  the  peas- 
antry, and  arrested  a  large  number  of  gentlemen  and 
royalist  officers  who  were  in  the  neighborhood,  and  had 
rushed  into  the  fight  on  hearing  the  firing. 

Arrests  of  the  same  kind  were  made  in  the  environs  of 
the  Champ-Saint-Père.  The  post  of  Port-la-Claye  was 
attacked,  and  although,  because  of  the  small  number  of 
assailants  the  royalists  were  easily  repulsed,  it  was  evi- 
dent from  the  audacity  and  vigor  of  the  attack  that  it  was 
made,  or  at  any  rate  led,  by  other  than  mere  refractories,  — • 
deserting  recruits. 


THE   LAST   KNIGHTS   OF   ROYALTY.  133 

On  one  of  the  prisoners  taken  at  the  Champ-Saint- 
Père  a  list  was  found  of  the  young  mon  forming  the 
corps  d'élite  of  the  royalist  forces.  This  list,  these  attacks 
made  on  various  sides  at  the  same  time,  these  arrests  of 
men  known  for  the  enthusiasm  of  their  Legitimist  opinions, 
naturally  put  the  authorities  on  their  guard,  and  made 
them  regard  as  imminent  the  dangers  they  had  hitherto 
treated  lightly. 

If  the  countermand  of  the  uprising  did  not  reach  the 
country  districts  of  La  Vendee  in  time,  still  less  could  the 
provinces  of  Brittany  and  Maine  receive  the  order;  and 
there  the  standard  of  revolt  was  openly  unfurled.  In 
the  first,  the  division  of  Vitré  took  the  field,  and  even 
won  a  victory  for  the  Bretons  at  Bréal,  — ■  an  ephemeral 
victory,  which  was  changed  to  defeat  the  following  day 
at  Gaudinière. 

In  Maine  Gaullier  received  the  countermand  too  late  to 
stop  his  gars  from  making  a  bloody  fight  at  Chaney,  which 
lasted  six  hours;  and  besides  that  engagement  (a  serious 
one  in  its  results)  the  peasantry,  unwilling  to  return  to 
their  homes  after  beginning  the  insurrection,  kept  up  a 
daily  guerilla  warfare  with  the  various  columns  of  troops 
which  lined  the  country. 

We  may  boldly  declare  that  the  countermand  of  May 
22,  the  headlong  and  unsupported  movements  which  then 
took  place,  the  want  of  cohesion  and  confidence  which 
naturally  resulted,  did  more  for  the  government  of  July 
than  the  zeal  of  all  its  agents  put  together. 

In  the  provinces  where  these  premature  attempts  were 
made  it  was  impossible  to  revive  the  ardor  thus  chilled 
and  wasted.  The  insurgent  peasantry  had  time  to  reflect; 
and  reflection,  often  favorable  to  calculation,  is  always 
fatal  to  sentiment.  The  leaders,  whose  names  were  now 
made  known  to  the  government,  were  easily  surprised  and 
arrested  on  returning  to  their  homes. 

It  was  still  worse  in  the  districts  where  the  peasantry 
had  openly  taken  the  field.      Finding  themselves    aban- 


184  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

doned  by  their  own  supporters,  and  not  receiving  the 
reinforcements  on  which  they  counted,  they  believed  them- 
selves betrayed,  broke  their  guns  in  two,  and  returned, 
indignantly,  to  their  cottages. 

The  Legitimist  insurrection  died  in  the  womb.  The 
cause  of  Henri  V.  lost  two  provinces  before  his  flag  was 
raised;  but  such  was  the  courage  of  these  sons  of  giants 
that,  as  we  are  now  about  to  see,  they  did  not  yet 
despair. 

Eight  days  had  elapsed  since  the  events  recorded  in  our 
last  chapter,  and  during  those  eight  days  the  political  tur- 
moil going  on  around  Machecoul  was  so  violent  that  it 
swept  into  its  orbit  all  the  personages  of  our  history  whose 
own  passions  and  interests  might  otherwise  have  kept  them 
aloof  from  it. 

Bertha,  made  uneasy  at  first  by  Michel's  disappearance, 
was  quite  reassured  when  he  returned  ;  and  her  happiness 
was  shown  with  such  effusion  and  publicity  that  it  was 
impossible  for  the  young  man,  unless  he  broke  the  promise 
he  had  made  to  Mary,  to  do  otherwise  than  appear,  on  his 
side,  glad  to  see  her.  The  many  services  she  had  to  ren- 
der to  Petit-Pierre,  the  many  details  of  the  correspondence 
with  which  she  was  intrusted,  so  absorbed  Bertha's  time 
that  she  did  not  notice  Michel's  sadness  and  depression,  or 
the  constraint  with  which  he  yielded  to  the  familiarity  her 
masculine  habits  led  her  to  show  to  the  man  whom  she 
regarded  as  her  betrothed  husband. 

Mary,  who  had  rejoined  her  father  and  sister  two  hours 
after  leaving  Michel  on  the  islet  of  Jonchère,  avoided  care- 
fully all  occasions  of  being  alone  with  her  lover.  When 
the  necessities  of  their  daily  life  brought  them  together 
she  took  every  possible  means  to  put  her  sister  at  an 
advantage  in  Michel's  eyes;  and  when  her  own  eyes 
encountered  those  of  the  young  baron  she  looked  at  him 
with  so  supplicating  an  expression  that  he  felt  himself 
gently  but  relentlessly  held  to  the  promise  he  had  given. 

If,    by   accident,    Michel    seemed    to   authorize    by   his 


THE  LAST  KNIGHTS  OF  ROYALTY.         135 

silence  the  attentions  with  which  Bertha  overwhelmed 
him,  Mary  affected  a  joyous  and  demonstrative  pleasure, 
which,  though  doubtless  far  from  her  own  heart,  was 
agonizing  to  that  of  Michel.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  all 
her  efforts,  it  was  impossible  for  her  to  conceal  the  ravages 
which  the  struggle  she  was  making  against  her  love 
wrought  in  her  appearance.  The  change  would  certainly 
have  struck  every  one  about  her  had  they  been  less  pre- 
occupied,—  Bertha  with  her  love,  Petit-Pierre  and  the 
marcpiis  with  the  cares  of  State.  Poor  Mary's  healthy 
freshness  disappeared;  dark  circles  of  bluish  bistre  hol- 
lowed her  eyes,  her  pale  cheeks  visibly  grew  thinner,  and 
slender  lines  appearing  on  her  beautiful  forehead  contra- 
dicted the  smile  that  was  ever  on  her  lips. 

Jean  Oullier,  whose  loving  solicitude  could  not  have 
been  deceived,  was  absent.  The  very  day  he  returned  to 
Banloeuvre  the  marquis  despatched  him  on  a  mission 
to  the  East,  and,  inexperienced  as  he  was  in  matters  of 
the  heart,  he  had  departed  almost  easy  in  mind,  having 
no  real  conception,  in  spite  of  all  he  had  heard,  that  the 
trouble  was  so  deep. 

The  3d  of  June  had  now  arrived.  On  that  day  a  great 
commotion  took  place  at  the  Jacquet  mill  in  the  district 
of  Saint-Colombin.  From  early  morning  the  going  and 
coming  of  women  and  beggars  had  been  incessant,  and  by 
nightfall  the  orchard  which  surrounded  the  mill  had  all 
the  appearance  of  an  encampment. 

Every  few  minutes  men  in  blouses  or  hunting-jackets, 
armed  with  guns,  sabres,  and  pistols,  kept  coming  in; 
some  through  the  fields,  others  by  the  roads.  They  said  a 
word  to  the  sentries  posted  around  the  farm,  on  which  word 
they  were  allowed  to  pass.  They  stacked  their  guns  along 
the  hedge  which  separated  the  orchard  from  the  courtyard, 
and  prepared,  as  they  severally  arrived,  to  bivouac,  under 
the  apple-trees.  Each  and  all  came  full  of  devotion;  few 
with  hope. 

The  courage  and  loyalty  of  such  convictions  make  them 


136  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

sacred  and  worthy  of  respect.  No  matter  to  what  opinions 
we  may  belong,  we  must  be  proud  of  finding  such  loyalty, 
such  courage,  among  friends,  and  glad  to  recognize  them 
among  adversaries.  That  political  faith  for  which  men  did 
not  shrink  from  dying  maybe  rebuked  and  denied;  God 
was  not  with  it  and  it  fell.  Nevertheless,  it  has  won  the 
right  to  be  honored,  even  in  defeat,  without  discussion. 

Antiquity  declared,  "Ills  to  the  vanquished!"  but  an- 
tiquity was  pagan.  Mercy  never  reigned  among  false 
gods. 

As  for  us,  —  not  concerning  ourselves  in  the  sentiments  or 
convictions  which  animated  them,  —  we  feel  it  was  a  noble 
and  chivalric  devotion  which  these  Vendéans  of  1832  held 
up  to  France,  then  beginning  to  be  invaded  by  the  narrow, 
sordid,  commercial  spirit  which  has  since  then  absorbed  it. 
And  above  all  it  seems  noble  and  chivalrous  when  we 
reflect  that  most  of  these  Vendéans  had  no  illusion  as  to 
the  outcome  of  their  struggle  ;  they  advanced  without  hope 
to  certain  death.  However  mistaken  they  may  have  been, 
whatever  may  be  said  of  their  action,  the  names  of  those 
men  belong  to  history;  and  we  here  join  hands  with  his- 
tory, if  not  to  glorify  them,  at  least  to  absolve  them, 
although  their  actual  names  must  not  be  mentioned  in  our 
narrative. 

Inside  the  Jacquet  mill  the  concourse,  though  less  numer- 
ous than  without,  was  not  less  noisily  busy.  Some  of  the 
leaders  were  receiving  their  last  instructions  and  concert- 
ing with  each  other  for  the  morrow;  others  were  relating 
the  occurrences  of  the  day,  which  had  not  been  uneventful. 
A  gathering  had  taken  place  on  the  moors  of  Les  Vergeries, 
and  several  encounters  with  the  government  troops  had 
occurred. 

The  Marquis  de  Souday  made  himself  conspicuous  among 
the  various  groups  by  his  enthusiastic  loquacity.  Once 
more  he  was  a  youth  of  twenty.  In  his  feverish  impa- 
tience it  seemed  to  him  that  the  sun  of  the  morrow  would 
never  dawn;  and  he  was  profiting  by  the  time  the  earth 


THE   LAST   KNIGHTS   OF   ROYALTY.  137 

consumed  in  making  its  revolution  to  give  a  lesson  in  mili- 
tary tactics  to  the  young  men  about  him. 

Michel,  sitting  in  the  chimney-corner,  was  the  only  per- 
son present  whose  mind  was  not  completely  absorbed  in 
the  events  that  were  impending.  His  situation  was  grow- 
ing more  complicated  every  moment.  A  few  friends  and 
neighbors  of  the  marquis  had  congratulated  him  on  his 
approaching  marriage  with  Mademoiselle  de  Souday.  At 
every  step  he  made  he  felt  he  was  entangling  himself  more 
and  more  in  the  net  he  had  blindly  entered  head  foremost; 
and  at  the  same  time  he  felt  that  all  his  efforts  to  keep  the 
promise  Mary  had  wrung  from  him  were  hopeless.  He 
knew  it  was  in  vain  to  attempt  to  drive  from  his  heart  the 
gentle  image  that  had  taken  possession  of  it. 

His  sadness  grew  deeper  and  heavier,  and  presented  at 
this  moment  a  curious  contrast  with  the  eager  countenances 
of  those  about  him.  The  noise  and  the  excitement  soon 
became  intolerable  to  him,  and  he  rose  and  went  out  with- 
out exciting  notice.  He  crossed  the  courtyard  and  passing 
behind  the  mill-wheel  entered  the  miller's  garden,  fol- 
lowed the  water-course,  and  finally  sat  down  on  the  rail  of 
a  little  bridge  some  two  or  three  hundred  yards  from  the 
house. 

He  had  been  sitting  there  about  an  hour,  indulging  in 
all  the  dismal  ideas  which  the  consciousness  of  his  unfortu- 
nate position  suggested  to  him,  when  he  noticed  a  man 
who  was  coming  toward  him  along  the  path  he  himself 
had  just  taken. 

"Is  that  you,  Monsieur  Michel  ?"  asked  the  man. 

"Jean  Oullier!"  cried  Michel.  "  Jean  Oullier  !  Heaven 
has  sent  you.     When  did  you  get  back  ?  " 

"Half  an  hour  ago." 

"Have  you  seen  Mary  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  have  seen  Mademoiselle  Mary." 

And  the  old  keeper  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven  and  sighed. 
The  tone  in  which  he  said  the  words,  the  gesture,  and  the 
sigh  which  accompanied  them,  showed  that  his  deep  solici- 


138  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

tude  was  not  blind  to  the  cause  of  the  young  girl's  fading 
appearance,  and  also  that  he  fully  appreciated  the  gravity 
of  the  situation. 

Michel  understood  him;  he  covered  his  face  with  his 
hands  and  merely  murmured  :  — 

"  Poor  Mary  !  " 

Jean  Oullier  looked  at  him  with  a  certain  compassion; 
then,  after  a  moment's  silence  he  said  :  — 

"  Have  you  decided  on  a  course  ?  " 

"No;  but  I  hope  that  to-morrow  a  musket-ball  will  save 
me  the  necessity." 

"Oh,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  "you  can't  count  on  that;  balls 
are  so  capricious,  —  they  never  go  to  those  who  call  them." 

"Ah,  Monsieur  Jean!"  exclaimed  Michel,  shaking;  "we 
are  very  unhappy." 

"Yes,  so  it  seems;  you  are  making  terrible  trouble  for 
yourselves,  all  of  you.  What  you  call  love  is  nothing  but 
unreasonableness.  Good  God  !  who  could  have  told  me 
that  these  two  children,  who  thought  of  nothing  but  roam- 
ing the  woods  bravely  and  merrily  with  their  father  and 
me,  would  fall  in  love  with  the  first  hat  that  came  in  their 
way,  — and  that,  too,  when  the  man  it  covered  was  more  of 
a  girl  in  his  sex  than  they  were  in  theirs  !  n 

"Alas!  it  is  fatality,  my  good  Jean." 

"No,"  said  the  Vendéan,  "you  needn't  blame  fate;  it 
was  I.  But  come,  as  you  have  n't  the  nerve  to  face  that 
foolish  Bertha,  and  speak  the  truth,  how  do  you  expect  to 
remain  an  honest  man  ?  " 

"I  shall  do  all  I  can  to  get  nearer  to  Mary;  you  can 
count  on  me  for  that  so  long  as  you  act  in  that  direction." 

"Who  says  anything  about  your  keeping  near  to  Mary  ? 
Poor  child  !  she  has  more  good  sense  than  all  of  you.  She 
cannot  be  your  wife,  —  she  told  you  so  the  other  day,  or 
rather  the  other  night;  and  she  was  perfectly  right,  —  only, 
her  love  for  Bertha  is  carrying  her  too  far.  She  is  con- 
demning herself  to  the  torture  she  wishes  to  spare  her 
sister;  and  that  is  what  neither  you  nor  I  must  allow." 


THE    LAST    KNIGHTS    OF    ROYALTY.  131) 

"  How  can  we  help  it,  Jean  Oullier  ?  " 

"Easily.  As  you  cannot  be  the  husband  of  the  woman 
you  love,  you  must  not  be  the  husband  of  the  woman  you 
don't  love.  Now  it  is  my  opinion  that  Mary's  grief  will 
get  easier  when  that  pain  is  taken  away  from  her.  For 
she  may  say  what  she  pleases;  there  's  always  a  touch  of 
jealousy  at  the  bottom  of  a  woman's  heart,  however  tender 
it  may  be." 

"Renounce  both  the  hope  of  making  Mary  my  wife  and 
the  consolation  of  seeing  her  ?  Impossible  !  I  can't  do 
it.  I  tell  you,  Jean  Oullier,  that  to  get  nearer  to  Mary  I 
would  go  through  hell-fire." 

"Phrases,  my  young  gentleman,  phrases!  The  world 
has  been  consoled  for  being  turned  out  of  paradise,  and  at 
your  age  a  man  can  always  forget  the  woman  he  loves. 
Besides,  the  thing  that  ought  to  separate  you  from  Mary  is 
something  else  than  hell-fire.  It  may  be  the  dead  body  of 
her  sister;  for  you  don't  yet  know  what. an  undisciplined 
child  it  is  that  goes  by  the  name  of  Bertha,  nor  of  what  she 
is  capable,  I  don't  understand,  poor  fool  of  a  peasant  that 
I  am,  all  your  fine  sentiments;  but  it  seems  to  me  the 
grandest  of  them  ought  to  pause  before  an  obstacle  of  this 
sort." 

"But  what  can  I  do,  my  friend  ?  What  shall  I  do  ? 
Advise  me." 

"All  the  trouble  comes,  as  I  think,  from  your  not  hav- 
ing the  character  of  your  sex.  You  must  now  do  what  a 
person  of  the  sex  to  which  by  your  manners  and  your 
weakness  you  seem  to  belong  would  do  under  the  circum- 
stances. You  have  not  known  how  to  master  the  situa- 
tion in  which  fate  placed  you;  and  now  you  must  flee 
from  it." 

"Flee  from  it!  But  did  you  hear  Mary  say  the  other 
day  that  if  I  renounced  her  sister  she  would  never  see  me 
again  ?  " 

"  What  of  that,  if  she  respects  you  ?  " 

"But  think  of  all  I  shall  have  to  suffer!  " 


î  tÔ  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"You  won't  suffer  at  a  distance  more  than  you  will 
suffer  here." 

"Here,  at  least,  I  can  see  her." 

"Do  you  think  the  heart  knows  distance  ?  No,  not 
even  when  those  we  are  parted  from  have  bid  us  their  last 
farewell.  Thirty  years  ago  and  over  I  lost  my  ]>oor  wife, 
but  there  are  days  when  I  see  her  as  plain  as  I  now  see 
you.  Mary's  image  will  remain  on  your  heart,  and  you 
will  hear  her  voice  thanking  you  for  what  you  now  do." 

"Ah  !  I  would  rather  you  talked  to  me  of  death." 

"  Come,  Monsieur  Michel,  make  an  effort.  I  'd  go  on  my 
knees  to  }'ou  if  necessary  —  I  who  have  many  a  cause  of 
hatred  against  you;  I  beg  you,  I  implore  you,  give  peace, 
as  far  as  it  is  now  possible,  to  those  poor  crep^tures  !  " 

"  What  do  you  want  me  to  do  ?  " 

"  I  want  you  to  go.     I  have  said  it,  and  I  repeat  it." 

"  Go  ?  Go  away  ?  You  can't  mean  it.  Why,  they  fight 
to-morrow,  and  to  go  to-day  would  be  deserting,  —  it  would 
be  dishonor." 

"No,  I  don't  want  you  to  dishonor  yourself.  If  you  go 
it  shall  not  be  desertion." 

"  How  so  ?  " 

"In  the  absence  of  a  captain  of  the  Clisson  division  I 
have  been  appointed  to  take  his  command;  you  shall  come 
with  me." 

"Oh,  T  hope  the  first  ball  to-morrow  may  carry  me  off." 

"  You  will  fight  under  my  eyes,  "  continued  Jean  Oullier  ; 
"and  if  any  one  doubts  your  bravery,  I  '11  bear  witness  to 
it.     Will  you  come  ?  " 

"Yes,"  replied  Michel,  in  so  low  a  voice  that  the  old 
man  could  scarcely  hear  him. 

"  Good  !  in  three  hours  we  start.  " 

"  Start  !  without  bidding  her  farewell  ?  " 

"Yes.  In  the  face  of  such  circumstances  she  might  not 
have  the  strength  to  let  you  go.     Come,  take  courage  !  " 

"I  will  take  it,  Oullier;  you  shall  be  satisfied  with  me." 

"  Then  I  can  rely  upon  you  ?  " 


THE  LAST  KNIGHTS  OF  ROYALTY.         141 

"  You  can.     1  give  you  my  word  of  honor." 

"I  shall  be  waiting  at  the  cross  ways  of  Belle-Passe  in 
three  hours  from  now." 

"I  will  be  there." 

Jean  Oullier  made  Michel  a  farewell  sign  that  was 
almost  friendly;  then  springing  across  the  little  bridge, 
he  went  to  the  orchard  and  mingled  with  the  other 
Vendéans. 


142  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XIV. 

JEAN   0ULLIER   LIES    FOK   THE    GOOD    OF    THE   CAUSE. 

The  young  baron  remained  for  several  minutes  in  a  state 
of  utter  prostration.  Jean  Oullier's  words  rang  in  his 
ears  like  a  knell  sounding  his  own  death.  He  thought  he 
dreamed,  and  he  kept  repeating,  as  if  to  convince  himself 
of  the  reality  of  his  sorrow,  "  Go  away  ?     Go  away  ?  " 

Presently,  the  chill  idea  of  death,  which  he  had  lately 
invoked  as  a  succor  from  heaven,  an  idea  adopted  as  we 
fasten  upon  such  thoughts  at  twenty,  passed  from  his 
brain  to  his  heart  and  froze  him.  He  shuddered  from 
head  to  foot.  He  saw  himself  separated  from  Mary,  not 
merely  by  a  distance  he  dared  not  cross,  but  by  that  wall 
of  granite  which  incloses  a  man  eternally  in  his  last  abode. 

His  pain  grew  so  intense  that  he  thought  it  a  presenti- 
ment. He  now  accused  Jean  Oullier  of  cruelty  and  injus- 
tice. The  sternness  of  the  old  Vendéan  in  refusing  him 
the  consolation  of  a  last  farewell  seemed  to  him  intolera- 
ble; it  was  surely  impossible  that  he  should  be  actually 
denied  a  last  look.  He  rebelled  at  the  thought,  and 
resolved  to  see  Mary,  no  matter  what  might  come  of  it. 

Michel  knew  the  internal  arrangements  of  the  miller's 
house.  Petit-Pierre's  room  was  the  miller's  own,  above 
the  grindstones.  This  was,  naturally,  the  place  of  honor 
in  the  establishment.  The  sisters  slept  in  a  little  room 
adjoining  this  chamber.  A  narrow  window  in  the  smaller 
room  looked  down  upon  the  outside  mill-wheel  which  kept 
the  machinery  at  work.  For  the  present,  however,  all  was 
still,  lest  the  noise  should  prevent  the  sentries  from  hear- 
ing other  sounds. 


JEAN   OULLIER   LIES.  143 

Michel  waited  till  it  was  dark, —  an  hour  perhaps;  then 
he  went  to  the  buildings.  A  light  could  be  seen  in  the 
narrow  window.  He  threw  a  plank  on  a  paddle  of  the 
wheel  and  managed,  by  resting  his  body  against  the  wall, 
to  climb  spoke  by  spoke  to  the  highest  point  oi'  the  wheel  ; 
there  he  found  himself  on  a  level  with  the  narrow  case- 
ment.    He  raised  his  head  and  looked  into  the  tiny  room. 

Mary  was  alone,  sitting  on  a  stool,  her  elbow  resting  on 
the  bed,  her  head  in  her  hands.  Now  and  then  a  heavy 
sigh  escaped  her;  from  time  to  time  her  lips  moved  as 
though  she  were  murmuring  a  prayer.  The  young  man 
tapped  against  a  window-pnne.  At  the  sound  she  raised 
her  head,  recognized  him  through  the  glass,  and  ran  to 
him. 

"Hush!"  he  said. 

"  You  !  you  here  !  "  cried  Mary. 

"Yes,  I." 

"  Good  God  !  what  do  you  want  ?  " 

"  Mary,  it  is  more  than  a  week  since  I  have  spoken  to 
you,  almost  a  week  since  I  have  seen  you.  I  have  come  to 
bid  you  farewell  before  I  go  to  meet  my  fate." 

"  Farewell  !  and  why  farewell  ?  " 

"I  have  come  to  say  farewell,  Mary,"  said  the  youth, 
firmly. 

"  Oh,  you  do  not  mean  to  die  ?  " 

Michel  did  not  answer. 

"No,  no;  you  will  not  die,"  continued  Mary.  "I  have 
prayed  so  much  that  God  must  hear  me.  But  now  that 
you  have  seen  me,  now  that  you  have  spoken  to  me,  you 
must  go,  —  go  !  " 

"  Why  must  I  leave  you  so  soon  ?  Do  you  hate  me  so 
intensely  that  you  cannot  bear  to  see  me  ?  " 

"  No,  you  know  it  is  not  that,  my  friend  ;  "  said  Mary. 
"But  Bertha  is  in  the  next  room;  she  may  have  heard 
you  come.  She  may  be  hearing  what  you  say.  Good  God  ! 
what  would  become  of  me  —  of  me  who  have  sworn  to  her 
that  I  did  not  love  you  !  " 


144  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Y ou  may  have  sworn  that  to  her,  but  to  me  you 
swore  otherwise.  You  swore  that  you  loved  me,  and  it 
\v:i.^  upon  the  faith  of  that  love  that  I  consented  to  conceal 
in)  own." 

"  Michel,  I  entreat  you,  go  away!  " 

"  No,  Mary,  I  will  not  go  until  your  lips  have  repeated 
to  trie  again  what  they  said  on  the  island  of  Jonchère." 

"  But  that  love  is  almost  a  crime  !  "  said  Mary,  desper- 
ately. "Michel,  my  friend,  T  blush,  I  weep,  when  I  think 
of  that  momentary  weakness." 

"Mary!  I  swear  to  you  that  to-morrow  you  shall  have 
no  such  remorse,  you  shall  shed  no  tears  of  that  kind." 

"Oh,  you  mean  to  die  !  No,  no;  do  not  say  it  !  Leave 
me  the  hope  that  my  sufferings  may  bring  you  a  better  fate 
than  mine.  Hush!  Don't  you  hear?  Some  one  is  coming! 
Go,  Michel;  go,  go  !" 

"  One  kiss,  Mary  !  " 

"No." 

"  Yes,  yes  ;  a  last  kiss  —  the  last  !  " 

"Never,  my  friend." 

"  Mary,  it  is  to  a  dying  man  !  " 

Mary  gave  a  cry  ;  her  lips  touched  his  forehead  ;  but  the 
instant  they  had  done  so,  and  while  she  was  closing  the 
window  hastily,  Bertha  appeared  in  the  door-way. 

When  the  latter  saw  her  sister,  pale,  perturbed,  scarcely 
able  to  support  herself,  she  rushed,  with  the  terrible 
instinct  of  jealousy,  to  the  window,  opened  it  violently, 
leaned  out,  and  saw  a  shadow  disappearing  in  the  dark- 
ness. 

"  Michel  was  with  you,  Mary  !  "  she  cried,  with  trem- 
bliiiL,r  lips. 

"Sister,"  said  Mary,  falling  on  her  knees;  "I  swear  —  " 

Bertha  interrupted  her. 

"Don't  swear,  don't  lie.     I  heard  his  voice." 

Bertha  pushed  Mary  away  from  her  with  such  violence 
that  the  latter  fell  flat  upon  the  floor.  Then  Bertha, 
springing    over   her   sister's    body,    furious   as   a   lioness 


JEAN    OULLIEK    LIES.  14Ô 

deprived  of  her  young,  rushed  from  the  room  and  down 
the  stairs,  crossed  the  mill,  and  reached  the  courtyard. 
There,  to  her  astonishment,  she  saw  Michel  sitting  on 
the  doorstep  beside  Jean  Oullier.  She  went  straight  up 
to  him. 

•'  How  long  have  you  been  here  ?  "  she  said  in  a  curt, 
harsh  voice. 

Michel  made  a  gesture  as  if  to  say,  "I  leave  Jean  Oullier 
to  reply." 

u  Monsieur  le  baron  and  I  have  been  talking  here  for  the 
last  half  hour  or  more." 

Bertha  looked  fixedly  at  the  old  Vendéan. 

"That  is  singular!"  she  said. 

•'"Why  singular?"  asked  Jean  Oullier,  fixing  his  own 
eyes  steadily  upon  her. 

"Because,"*  said  Bertha,  addressing  Michel  and  not  Jean 
Oullier.  "because  I  thought  I  heard  you  talking  with  my 
sister  at  her  window,  and  saw  you  climbing  down  the  mill- 
wheel  which  you  had  mounted  to  reach  her." 

"Monsieur  le  baron  doesn't  look  as  if  he  had  just 
performed  such  an  acrobatic  feat,"'  said  Jean  Oullier, 
sarcastically. 

"  Then  who  do  you  suppose  it  was,  Jean  ?  "  said  Bertha, 
stamping  her  foot  impatiently. 

"Oh,  some  of  those  drunkards  over  there,  who  were 
playing  a  trick." 

"But  I  tell  you  that  Mary  was  pale  and  trembling." 

"With  fright,"  said  Jean  Oullier.  "She  hasn't  got 
your  iron  nerves." 

Bertha  grew  thoughtful.  She  knew  the  feelings  that 
Jean  Oullier  cherished  against  the  young  baron  ;  therefore 
she  could  hardly  suppose  he  was  in  league  with  him 
against  her.  After  a  moment's  silence  her  thoughts 
reverted  to  Mary,  and  she  remembered  that  she  had  left 
her  almost  fainting. 

"Yes,"  she  said;  "yes.  Jean  Oullier,  you  are  right. 
The  poor  child  must  have  been  frightened,  and  I,  with  my 

VOL.    II—  10 


146  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

rough  ways,  have  made  matters  worse.  Oh,"  she  muttered, 
"this  love  is  making  me  beside  myself  !  " 

Then,  without  another  word  to  Michel  or  Jean  Oullier, 
she  rushed  into  the  mill. 

Jean  Oullier  looked  at  Michel,  who  lowered  his  eyes. 

"I  shall  not  reproach  you,"  he  said  to  the  young  man, 
"  but  you  must  see  now  on  what  a  powder-barrel  you  are 
.stepping.  What  would  have  happened  if  1  had  not  been 
here  to  lie,  God  forgive  me  !  as  if  I  were  a  liar  born." 

"Yes,"  said  Michel,  "you  are  right,  Jean, —  I  know  it; 
and  the  proof  is  that  1  swear  to  follow  you,  for  I  see 
plainly  I  can't  stay  here  any  longer." 

"  That 's  right.  The  Nantes  men  will  start  in  a  few 
moments;  the  marquis  joins  them  with  his  division;  start 
yourself  at  the  same  time,  but  fall  behind  and  join  me,  you 
know  where." 

Michel  went  off  to  fetch  his  horse,  and  Jean  Oullier, 
meantime,  obtained  his  last  instructions  from  the  marquis. 
The  Veudéans  camping  in  the  orchard  now  formed  in  line, 
their  arms  sparkling  in  the  shadows.  A  quiver  of  repressed 
impatience  ran  through  the  ranks. 

Presently  Petit-Pierre,  followed  by  the  principal  leaders, 
came  out  of  the  house  and  advanced  to  the  Vendéans.  She 
was  hardly  recognized  before  a  mighty  cry  of  enthusiasm 
burst  from  every  mouth.  Sabres  were  drawn  to  salute  her 
for  whose  cause  each  man  was  prepared  to  die. 

"My  friends,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  advancing,  -'I  promised 
I  would  be  present  at  the  first  armed  meeting;  and  here  I 
am,  never  to  leave  you.  Fortunate  or  unfortunate,  your 
fate  shall  be  mine  henceforth.  If  I  cannot  —  as  my  son 
would  have  done  —  rally  you  to  where  my  white  plume 
shines,  I  can  —  as  he  would  —  die  with  you  !  Go,  sons  of 
giants,  go  where  duty  and  honor  call  you  !  " 

Frantic  cries  of  "Vive  Henri  V!  Vive  Marie-Caroline  !  " 
welcomed  this  allocution.  Petit-Pierre  addressed  a  few 
more  words  to  those  of  the  leaders  whom  she  knew;  and 
then  the  little  troop  on  which  rested  the  fate  of  the  old- 


JEAN   OULLIER   LIES.  147 

est  monarchy  in  Europe  took  its  way  in  the  direction  of 
Vieille-  Y'igne. 

During  this  time  Bertha  had  been  showering  attentions 
on  her  sister,  all  the  more  eager  because  of  her  sudden 
change  of  feeling.  She  carried  her  to  her  bed  and  bathed 
her  face  in  cold  water.  Mary  opened  her  eyes  and  looked 
about  her  in  a  bewildered  way,  murmuring  in  a  low  voice 
Michel's  name.     Her  heart  revived  before  her  reason. 

Bertha  shuddered.  She  was  about  to  ask  Mary  to  for- 
give her  violence,  but  Michel's  name  on  her  sister's  lips 
stopped  the  words  in  her  throat.  For  the  second  time  the 
serpents  of  jealousy  were  gnawing  at  her  heart. 

Just  then  the  acclamations  with  which  the  Vendéans 
welcomed  the  address  of  Petit-Pierre  reached  her  ears. 
She  went  to  the  window  of  the  next  room  and  saw  the 
waving  line  of  a  dark  mass  among  the  trees,  lighted  here 
and  there  with  flashes.  It  was  the  column  just  beginning 
its  march.  The  thought  struck  her  that  Michel,  who  was 
certainly  with  that  column,  had  gone  without  bidding  her 
good-bye  ;  and  she  returned,  thoughtful,  uneasy,  and  gloomy 
to  her  sister's  bedside. 


148  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XV. 

JAILER   AND    PRISONER    ESCAPE   TOGETHER. 

At  daybreak  on  the  4th  of  June  the  tocsin  sounded  from 
all  the  bell-towers  in  the  districts  of  Clisson,  Montaigu, 
and  Machecoul.  The  tocsin  is  the  drum-call  of  the  Ven- 
déans.  Formerly,  that  is  to  say  in  the  days  of  the  great 
war,  when  its  harsh  and  sinister  clang  resounded  through 
the  land  the  whole  population  rose  in  a  mass  and  ran  to 
meet  the  enemy. 

How  many  noble  things  those  people  must  have  done  to 
enable  us  to  forget,  almost  forget,  that  their  enemy  was  — 
France  ! 

Happily,  —  and  this  proves  the  immense  progress  we  have 
made  in  the  past  forty  years, —  happily,  we  say,  in  1832  the 
tocsin  appeared  to  have  lost  its  power.  If  a  few  peasants, 
answering  its  impious  call,  left  their  ploughs  and  seized 
the  guns  hidden  in  the  hedges,  the  majority  continued 
calmly  along  the  furrows,  and  contented  themselves  by 
listening  to  the  signal  for  revolt  with  that  profoundly 
meditative  air  which  suits  so  well  with  the  Vendéan  cast 
of  countenance. 

And  yet,  by  ten  o'clock  that  morning,  a  rather  numerous 
body  of  insurgents  had  already  fought  an  engagement  with 
the  regular  army.  Strongly  intrenched  in  the  village  of 
Maisdon,  this  troop  sustained  a  strong  attack  directed 
against  it,  and  had  only  given  way  before  superior  num- 
bers. It  then  effected  its  retreat  in  better  order  than 
was  customary  with  the  Vendéans  even  after  a  slight  or 
momentary  reverse. 


JAILER   AND   PRISONER   ESCAPE   TOGETHER.  149 

The  reason  was,  and  we  repeat  it,  that  La  Vendée  was  no 
longer  fighting  for  the  triumph  of  a  great  principle,  but 
simply  from  a  great  devotion.  If  we  are  now  making  our- 
selves the  historian  of  this  war  (after  our  usual  fashion  of 
writing  history)  it  is  because  we  hope  to  draw  from  the 
very  facts  we  relate  the  satisfactory  conclusion  that  civil 
war  will  soon  be  impossible  in  France. 

Now,  this  devotion  of  which  we  speak  was  that  of 
men  of  noble,  elevated  hearts,  who  felt  themselves  bound 
by  their  fathers'  past,  and  who  gave  their  honor,  their 
fortunes,  and  their  life  in  support  of  the  old  adage, 
Noblesse  oblige.  That  is  the  reason  why  the  retreat  was 
made  in  good  order.  Those  who  executed  it  were  no 
longer  undisciplined  peasants,  but  gentlemen;  and  each 
man  fought  not  only  from  devotion  but  also  from  pride, — 
pride  for  himself,  and,  in  a  measure,  for  others. 

The  Whites  were  immediately  attacked  again  at  Château- 
Thébaud  by  a  detachment  of  fresh  troops  sent  by  General 
Dermoncourt  to  pursue  them.  The  royalists  lost  several 
men  at  the  passage  of  the  Maine,  but  having  succeeded  in 
putting  that  river  between  themselves  and  their  pursuers, 
they  were  able  to  form  a  junction  on  the  left  bank  with 
the  Nantes  men,  whom  we  lately  saw  departing,  full  of 
enthusiasm,  from  the  Jacquet  mill,  and  who  since  then 
had  been  reinforced  by  the  men  from  Lege  and  the  division 
of  the  Marquis  de  Souday.  This  reinforcement  brought 
the  effective  strength  of  this  column,  which  was  under 
Gaspard's  command,  to  about  eight  hundred  men. 

The  next  morning  it  marched  on  Vieille-Vigne,  hoping 
to  disarm  the  National  Guard  at  that  point;  but  learning 
that  the  little  town  was  occupied  by  a  much  superior  force, 
to  which  would  be  added  in  a  few  hours  the  troops  assem- 
bled at  Aigrefeuille  (where  the  general  had  collected  a 
large  body  for  the  purpose  of  throwing  them  on  any  point 
in  case  of  necessity),  the  Vendéan  leader  determined  to 
attack  the  village  of  Chêne,  intending  to  capture  and 
occupy  it. 


150  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

The  peasants  were  scattered  through  the  neighborhood. 
Hidden  among  the  wheat,  which  was  already  of  a  good 
height,  they  worried  the  Blues  with  incessant  sharp-shoot- 
ing, following  the  tactics  of  their  fathers.  The  men  of 
Nantes  and  the  country  gentlemen  formed  in  column 
and  prepared  to  carry  the  village  by  main  force,  attack- 
ing it  along  the  chief  street  which  runs  from  end  to  end 
of  it. 

At  the  end  of  that  street  ran  a  brook;  but  the  bridge 
had  been  destroyed  the  night  before,  nothing  remaining  of 
it  but  a  few  disjointed  timbers.  The  soldiers,  withdrawn 
into  the  houses  and  ambushed  behind  the  windows,  pro- 
tected with  mattresses,  poured  a  cross-fire  down  upon  the 
Whites,  which  repulsed  them  twice  and  paralyzed  their 
onset,  until,  electrified  by  the  example  of  their  leaders,  the 
Vendéan  soldiers  flung  themselves  into  the  water,  crossed 
the  little  river,  met  the  Blues  with  the  bayonet,  hunted 
them  from  house  to  house,  and  drove  them  to  the  extremity 
of  the  village,  where  they  found  themselves  face  to  face 
with  a  battalion  of  the  44th  of  the  line  which  the  general 
had  just  sent  forward  to  support  the  little  garrison  of 
Chêne. 

The  sound  of  the  firing  reached  the  mill,  which  Petit- 
Pierre  had  not  yet  quitted.  She  was  still  in  that  room  on 
the  first  floor  where  we  have  already  seen  her.  Pale,  with 
eager  eyes,  she  walked  up  and  down  in  the  grasp  of  a 
feverish  agitation  she  could  not  quell.  From  time  to  time 
she  stopped  on  the  threshold  of  the  door,  listening  to  the 
dull  roll  of  the  musketry  which  the  breeze  brought  to  her 
ears  like  the  rumbling  of  distant  thunder;  then,  she  passed 
her  hand  across  her  forehead,  which  was  bathed  in  sweat, 
stamped  her  feet  in  anger,  and  at  last  sat  down  in  the 
chimney-corner  opposite  to  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  who, 
though  no  less  agitated,  no  less  impatient  than  Petit- 
Pierre,  only  sighed  from  time  to  time  in  a  dolorous  way. 

How  came  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  whom  we  have  seen 
so  impatient  to  begin  all  over  again  his  early  exploits  in 


JAILER   AND    PRISONER   ESCAPE    TOGETHER.  151 

the  great  war,  to  be  thus  tied  down  to  a  merely  expectant 
position  ?     We  must  explain  this  to  our  readers. 

The  day  of  the  engagement  at  Maisdon  Petit-Pierre,  in 
accordance  with  the  promise  she  had  given  to  her  friends, 
made  ready  to  join  them  and  share  in  the  fight  itself.  But 
the  royalist  chiefs  were  alarmed  at  the  great  responsibility 
her  courage  and  ardor  threw  upon  them.  They  felt  that 
the  dangers  were  too  many  under  the  still  uncertain  chances 
of  this  war,  and  they  decided  that  until  the  whole  army 
were  assembled  they  could  not  allow  Petit-Pierre  to  risk 
her  life  in  some  petty  and  obscure  encounter. 

liespectful  representations  were  therefore  made  to  her, 
all  of  which  failed  to  change  her  strong  determination. 
The  Vendéan  leaders  then  took  counsel  together  and  decided 
among  themselves  to  keep  her  as  it  were  a  prisoner,  and 
to  appoint  one  of  their  own  number  to  remain  beside  her, 
and  prevent  her,  by  force  if  necessary,  from  leaving  her 
quarters. 

In  spite  of  the  care  the  Marquis  de  Souday  (who  was  of 
the  council)  took  in  voting  and  intriguing  to  throw  the 
choice  on  one  of  his  colleagues,  he  himself  was  selected; 
and  that  is  why  he  was  now,  to  his  utter  despair,  com- 
pelled to  stay  in  the  Jacquet  mill  beside  the  miller's 
fire,  instead  of  being  at  Chêne  and  under  the  lire  of  the 
Blues. 

When  the  first  sounds  of  the  combat  reached  the  mill 
Petit-Pierre  endeavored  to  persuade  the  marquis  to  let  her 
join  her  faithful  Vendéans  :  but  the  old  gentleman  was  not 
to  be  shaken;  prayers,  promises,  threats,  were  all  in  vain 
against  his  strict  fidelity  to  orders  received.  But  Petit- 
Pierre  could  plainly  see  on  his  face  the  deep  annoyance  he 
felt;  for  the  marquis,  who  was  little  of  a  courtier  by 
nature,  was  unable  to  conceal  it.  Stopping  short  before 
him  just  as  one  of  the  sighs  of  impatience  we  have  already 
mentioned  escaped  him,  she  said  :  — 

"It  seems  to  me,  marquis,  that  you  are  not  extraordina- 
rily delighted  with  my  companionship  ?  " 


152  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Oil  !  "  exclaimed  the  marquis,  endeavoring,  but  without 
success,  to  give  a  tone  of  shocked  denial  to  his  interjection. 

"Yes,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  who  had  an  object  in  persist- 
ing, "  I  think  you  are  not  at  all  pleased  with  the  post  of 
honor  assigned  to  you." 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  accepted  that  post  with  the  deepest 
gratitude  ;  but  —  " 

"Ah!  there's  a  but?  I  knew  it  !"  said  Petit-Pierre, 
who  seemed  determined  to  fathom  the  old  gentleman's 
mind  on  this  point. 

"  Is  n't  there  always  a  but  in  every  earthly  thing  ?  " 
replied  the  marquis,  evasively. 

"  What  is  yours  ?  " 

"Well,  I  regret  not  to  be  able,  while  showing  myself 
worthy  of  the  trust  my  comrades  have  laid  upon  me,  I 
certainly  do  regret  not  being  able  to  shed  my  blood  on  your 
behalf,  as  they  are  doing,  no  doubt,  at  this  very  moment." 

Petit-Pierre  sighed  heavily. 

"I  have  no  doubt,"  she  said,  "that  our  friends  are  even 
now  regretting  your  absence.  Your  experience  and  tried 
courage  would  certainly  be  of  the  utmost  help  to  them." 

The  marquis  swelled  with  pride. 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  said;  "I  know  they  '11  repent  of  it." 

"  I  am  sure  of  it.  My  dear  marquis,  will  you  let  me  tell 
you,  with  my  hand  on  my  couscience,  the  whole  truth  as 
I  see  it  ?  " 

"Oh,  yes;  I  entreat  you." 

"  Well,  I  think  they  distrusted  you  as  much  as  they  did 
me." 

"Impossible  !  " 

"Stop!  you  don't  see  what  I  mean.  They  said  to 
themselves:  'A  woman  would  hinder  us  in  marching;  we 
should  have  to  think  of  her  if  we  retreat.  In  any  case 
we  must  devote  to  the  security  of  her  person  a  troop  of 
soldiers  we  could  better  employ  elsewhere.'  They  did  not 
choose  to  believe  that  I  have  succeeded  in  conquering  the 
weakness  of  my  body,  and  that  my  courage  is  equal  to  the 


JAILER   AND   PRISONER   ESCAPE   TOGETHER.  153 

greatness  of  my  task;  if  they  think  so  of  me,  can  you 
wonder  if  they  think  it  of  you  ?  " 

"  Of  me  !  "  cried  Monsieur  de  Souday,  furious  at  the 
mere  suggestion.  "  I  have  given  proofs  of  courage  all  my 
life!" 

"All  the  world  knows  that,  my  dear  marquis;  but  per- 
haps, remembering  your  age,  they  may  have  thought  that 
your  bodily  vigor,  like  mine,  was  no  longer  equal  to  the 
ardor  of  your  spirit." 

"  Oh,  that 's  too  much  !  "  cried  the  old  soldier  of  former 
days  in  a  tone  of  the  deepest  indignation.  "  Why  !  there 
has  n't  been  a  day  for  the  last  fifteen  years  that  I  have  n't 
been  six  or  eight  hours  in  the  saddle,  —  sometimes  ten, 
sometimes  twelve!  In  spite  of  my  white  hairs  I  can 
stand  fatigue  as  well  as  any  man.  See  what  I  can  do 
still  !  " 

Seizing  the  stool  on  which  he  was  sitting,  he  struck  it 
with  such  violence  against  the  stone  chimney-piece  that  he 
shattered  the  stool  to  bits  and  made  a  deep  gash  in  the 
mantel.  Brandishing  above  his  head  the  leg  of  the  hap- 
less stool  which  remained  in  his  hand,  he  cried  out  :  — 

"How  many  of  your  young  dandies,  Maître  Petit-Pierre, 
could  do  that  ?  " 

"I  never  doubted  your  powers,  my  dear  marquis;  and 
that  is  why  I  say  those  gentlemen  have  made  a  great  mis- 
take in  treating  you  like  an  invalid." 

"An  invalid!  I?  God's  death!"  cried  the  marquis, 
more  and  more  exasperated,  and  totally  forgetting  the 
presence  of  the  person  with  whom  he  was  speaking.  "  An 
invalid  !  I  ?  Well,  this  very  evening,  I  '11  tell  them  I 
renounce  these  functions,  which  are  those,  not  of  a  gentle- 
man, but  a  jailer." 

"That 's  right  !  "  interjected  Petit-Pierre. 

"Functions,  which  for  the  last  two  hours,"  continued  the 
marquis,  striding  up  and  down  the  room,  "I  have  been 
sending  to  all  the  devils." 

"Ah,  ha!" 


154  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  And  to-morrow,  yes,  I  say  to-morrow,  I  '11  show  them 
who  's  an  invalid,  that  I  will  !  " 

"Alas!"  said  Petit-Pierre  in  a  melancholy  tone,  "to- 
morrow may  not  belong  to  us,  my  poor  marquis  ;  you  are 
wrong  to  count  upon  it." 

"  Why  so  ?  " 

"You  know  very  well  the  uprising  is  not  as  general  as 
we  hoped  it  might  be.  Who  knows  whether  the  shots  we 
now  hear  may  not  be  the  last  fired  in  defence  of  the  white 
flag  ?  " 

"  Hum  !  "  growled  the  marquis,  with  the  fury  of  a  bull- 
dog tugging  at  his  chain. 

Just  then  a  call  for  help  from  the  farther  end  of  the 
orchard  put  an  end  to  their  talk.  They  both  ran  to  the 
spot,  and  there  saw  Bertha,  whom  the  marquis  had  sta- 
tioned as  an  outside  lookout,  bringing  in  a  wounded  peas- 
ant, whom  she  had  scarcely  strength  enough  to  support. 
Mary  and  Eosine  had  also  rushed  out  at  the  cry.  The 
peasant  was  a  young  gars  from  twenty  to  twenty -two  years 
of  age,  with  his  shoulder  shattered  by  a  ball.  Petit-Pierre 
ran  up  to  him  and  placed  him  on  a  chair,  where  he  fainted. 

"For  heaven's  sake,  retire,"  said  the  marquis  to  Petit- 
Pierre;  "my  daughters  and  I  will  dress  the  poor  devil's 
wound." 

"  Pray,  why  should  I  retire  ?  "  said  Petit-Pierre. 

"  Because  the  sight  of  that  wound  is  not  one  that  every- 
body can  stand;  I  am  afraid  it  is  more  than  you  have 
strength  to  bear." 

"Then  you  are   like  all  the  rest;    and  you  lead  me   to 
suppose  that  our  friends  were  right  in  the  judgment  they 
formed  on  you  as  well  as  on  me." 
"I  don't  see  that;  how  so  ?  " 

"You  think,  as  they  do,  that  I  am  wanting  in  courage." 
Then,  as  Mary  and  Bertha  were  beginning  to  examine 
the  wound,  "Let  the  poor  fellow's  wound  alone,"  she 
continued,  "I  —  and  I  alone,  do  you  hear  me  ?  —  will 
dress  it." 


JAILER    AND    PRISONER   ESCAPE    TOGETHER.  155 

Taking  her  scissors  Petit -Pierre  slit  up  the  sleeve  of  the 
Vendéan's  jacket,  which  was  stuck  to  the  arm  by  the  dried 
blood,  opened  the  wound,  washed  it,  covered  it  with  lint 
and  deftly  bandaged  it.  Just  as  she  was  finishing  her 
work  the  wounded  peasant  opened  his  eyes  and  recovered 
his  senses. 

"  What  news  ?  "  asked  the  marquis,  unable  to  restrain 
himself  a  moment  longer. 

"Alas!"  said  the  man;  "our  (jars,  who  were  conquerors 
at  first,  are  now  repulsed." 

Petit-Pierre,  who  did  not  blanch  while  attending  to  the 
wound,  grew  as  white  as  the  linen  she  was  using  for 
bandages;  and  putting  in  a  last  pin  to  hold  it,  she 
seized  the  marquis  by  the  arm  and  drew  him  toward 
the  door. 

"Marquis,"  she  said,  "you,  who  saw  the  Blues  in  the 
great  war,  tell  me,  what  was  done  when  the  nation  was  in 
danger  ?  " 

"Done?"  cried  the  marquis.  "Why,  everybody  ran 
to  arms." 

"  Even  the  women  ?  " 

"Yes,  the  women;  even  the  old  men,  even  the  children." 

"  Marquis,  it  may  be  that  the  white  flag  will  fall  to-day 
never  to  rise  again.  Why  do  you  condemn  me  to  making 
barren  and  impotent  prayers  and  vows  in  its  behalf  ?  " 

"But  just  reflect,"  said  the  marquis;  "suppose  a  ball 
were  to  strike  you." 

"Oh  !  do  you  think  my  son's  cause  would  be  injured  if 
my  bloody  and  bullet-riddled  clothing  were  carried  on  a 
pike  in  front  of  our  battalions  ?  " 

"No,  no!"  cried  the  marquis,  passionately.  "I  would 
curse  my  native  soil  if  the  stones  themselves  did  not  rise 
at  such  a  sight." 

"Then  come  with  me  and  let  us  join  our  troops." 

"But,"  replied  the  marquis,  with  less  determination  than 
he  had  previously  shown  against  Petit-Pierre's  entreaties, 
—  as  if  the  idea  of  being  regarded  as  an  invalid  had  shaken 


156  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

the  firmness  with  which  he  executed  his  orders,  —  "  but  I 
promised  you  should  not  leave  the  mill." 

"Well,  I  release  you  from  that  promise,"  said  Petit- 
Pierre  ;  "and  I,  who  know  your  valor,  order  you  to  follow 
me.  Come,  marquis,  we  may  still  be  in  time  to  rally  vic- 
tory to  our  flag;  if  not,  if  we  are  too  late,  we  can  at  least 
die  with  our  friends." 

So  saying,  Petit-Pierre  darted  through  the  courtyard 
and  orchard,  followed  by  Bertha  and  by  the  marquis,  who 
thought  it  his  duty  to  renew,  from  time  to  time,  his 
remonstrances;  although,  in  the  depths  of  his  heart,  he 
was  delighted  with  the  turn  affairs  were  taking. 

Mary  and  Rosine  remained  behind  to  care  for  the 
wounded. 


THE   BATTLEFIELD.  157 


XVI. 


THE   BATTLEFIELD, 


The  Jacquet  mill  was  about  three  miles  from  the  village 
of  Chêne.  Petit-Pierre,  guided  by  the  noise  of  the  firing, 
did  half  the  way  running;  and  it  was  with  great  difficulty 
that  the  marquis  stopped  her  as  they  neared  the  scene  of 
action,  and  succeeded  in  inspiring  her  with  some  prudence, 
lest  she  should  plunge  head-foremost  into  the  government 
troops. 

On  turning  one  of  the  flanks  of  the  line  of  sharp-shooters, 
whose  firing,  as  we  have  said,  was  her  guide,  Petit-Pierre, 
followed  by  her  companions,  came  upon  the  rear  of  the 
Vendéan  army,  which  had,  in  truth,  lost  all  the  ground  we 
saw  it  gain  in  the  morning,  and  was  now  driven  back  some 
distance  beyond  the  village  of  Chêne.  On  catching  sight 
of  Petit-Pierre,  as,  with  flying  hair  and  gasping  breath 
she  came  up  the  hill  toward  the  main  body  of  the  Wn- 
déans,  the  whole  of  the  little  army  burst  into  a  roar  of 
enthusiasm. 

Gaspard,  who,  together  with  his  officers,  was  firing  like  a 
common  soldier,  turned  round  at  the  shout  and  saw  Petit- 
Pierre,  Bertha,  and  the  Marquis  de  Souday.  The  latter, 
in  the  rapidity  of  their  course,  had  lost  his  hat,  and  now 
appeared  with  his  white  hair  flying  in  the  wind.  It  was 
to  him  that  Gaspard  spoke  first. 

'•'Is  this  how  the  Marquis  de  Souday  keeps  his  word  ?  " 
he  said  in  an  irritated  tone. 

"  Monsieur,"  replied  the  marquis,  sharply,  "it  is  not  of  a 
poor  invalid  like  me  that  you  ought  to  ask  that  question." 


158  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Petit-Pierre  hastened  to  intervene.  Her  party  was  not 
strong  enough  to  allow  of  dissensions  among  its  leaders. 

"Souday  is  bound,  as  you  are,  to  obey  me,"  she  said; 
"I  seldom  claim  the  exercise  of  that  right;  but  to-day  I 
have  thought  proper  to  do  so.  I  assume  my  place  as 
generalissimo,  and  ask,  how  goes  the  day,  lieutenant  ?  " 

Gaspard  shook  his  head  significantly. 

"The  Blues  are  in  force,"  he  said,  "and  my  scouts 
report  that  reinforcements  are  reaching  them." 

"So  much  the  better,"  cried  Petit-Pierre;  "they  will  be 
so  many  more  to  tell  Prance  how  we  died." 

"  You  cannot  mean  that,  Madame  !  " 

"I  am  not  Madame  here;  I  am  a  soldier.  Fight  on, 
without  regard  to  me;  advance  your  line  of  skirmishers 
and  double  their  fire." 

"  Yes  ;  but  first,  to  the  rear  !  " 

"  To  the  rear  !  who  ?  " 

"You,  in  God's  name  !  " 

"Nonsense  !  to  the  front  you  mean." 

Snatching  Gaspard' s  sword,  Petit-Pierre  put  her  hat  on 
the  point  of  it  as  she  sprang  in  the  direction  of  the  village 
crying  out  :  — 

"  Those  who  love  me,  follow  me  !  " 

Gaspard  vainly  attempted  to  restrain  her,  and  even 
caught  her  arm;  but  Petit-Pierre,  light  and  agile,  escaped 
him  and  continued  her  way  toward  the  line  of  houses 
whence  the  soldiers,  observing  the  renewed  movement  on 
the  part  of  the  Vendéans,  were  beginning  a  murderous 
fire. 

Seeing  the  danger  that  Petit-Pierre  was  incurring,  all 
the  Vendéans  rushed  forward  to  make  a  rampart  of  their 
bodies,  and  the  effect  of  such  a  rush  was  so  sudden,  so 
powerful,  that  in  a  few  seconds  they  were  over  the  brook 
and  into  the  village,  where  they  came  face  to  face  with 
the  Blues.  The  clash  was  almost  instantly  followed  by  a 
terrible  mêlée.  Gaspard,  his  mind  wholly  occupied  by  one 
thing,   the  safety  of  Petit-Pierre,   succeeded  in  reaching 


THE    BATTLEFIELD.  159 

her  and  flinging  her  back  among  his  men.  So  intent  was 
he  on  saving  the  august  life  he  felt  that  God  himself  had 
intrusted  to  him,  that  he  gave  no  thought  to  his  own  safety, 
and  did  not  see  that  a  soldier  posted  at  the  corner  of  the 
first  house  was  aiming  at  him. 

It  would  have  been  all  over  with  the  Chouan  leader  if 
the  marquis  had  not  observed  the  threatened  danger.  Slip- 
ping along  the  wall  of  the  house  he  threw  up  the  muzzle  of 
the  weapon  just  as  its  owner  fired  it.  The  ball  struck  a 
chimney  ;  the  soldier  turned  furiously  on  the  marquis,  and 
tried  to  stab  him  with  his  bayonet,  which  the  latter  evaded 
by  throwing  back  his  body.  The  old  gentleman  was  about 
to  reply  with  a  pistol-shot  when  a  ball  broke  the  weapon 
in  his  hand. 

"So  much  the  better  !  "  he  cried,  drawing  his  sabre  and 
dealing  so  terrible  a  blow  that  the  soldier  rolled  at  his  feet 
like  an  ox  felled  by  a  club;  "I  prefer  the  white  weapon." 
Then,  brandishing  his  sabre  he  cried  out:  "There,  General 
Gaspard,  what  do  you  think  of  your  invalid  now  ?  " 

Bertha  had  followed  Petit-Pierre,  her  father  and  the 
Vendéans  ;  but  her  thoughts  were  much  less  on  the  soldiers 
than  on  what  was  passing  immediately  about  her.  She 
looked  for  Michel,  striving  to  distinguish  him  in  the  whirl- 
wind of  men  and  horses  that  passed  beside  her. 

The  government  troops,  surprised  by  the  suddenness 
and  vigor  of  the  attack,  retreated  step  by  step;  the 
National  guard  of  Vieille-Vigne  had  retired  altogether. 
The  ground  was  heaped  with  dead.  The  result  was  that 
as  the  Blues  no  longer  replied  to  the  straggling  fire  of  the 
gars  posted  in  the  vineyards  and  gardens  around  the  vil- 
lage, Maître  Jacques,  who  commanded  the  skirmishers, 
was  able  to  assemble  his  men  in  a  body.  Putting  himself 
at  their  head  he  led  them  through  a  by-way  which  skirted 
the  gardens  and  fell  upon  the  flank  of  the  soldiers. 

The  latter,  whose  resistance  was  becoming  by  this  time 
more  resolute,  sustained  the  attack  valiantly,  and  forming 
in  line  across  the  main  street  of  the  village,  presented  a 


160  THE  LAST  VENDÉE. 

front  to  their  new  assailants.  Soon  a  pause  of  hesitation 
appeared  among  the  Vendéans,  the  Blues  regained  the 
advantage,  and  their  column  having,  in  its  charge,  passed 
the  opening  of  the  little  by-way  by  which  Maître- Jacques 
and  his  men  had  debouched,  the  latter  with  five  or  six  of 
his  "rabbits,"  among  whom  figured  Aubin  Courte-Joie  and 
Trigaud- Vermin,  found  themselves  cut  off  from  the  body 
of  their  comrades.  Whereupon  Maître  Jacques,  rallying 
his  men  about  him,  set  his  back  to  a  wall  to  protect  his 
rear,  and  sheltering  beneath  the  scaffolding  of  a  house 
which  was  just  being  built  at  the  corner  of  the  street,  pre- 
pared to  sell  his  life  dearly. 

Courte-Joie,  armed  with  a  small  double-barrelled  gun, 
fired  incessantly  on  the  soldiers  ;  each  of  his  balls  was  the 
death  of  a  man.  As  for  Trigaud,  his  hands  being  free,  for 
the  cripple  was  strapped  to  his  shoulders  by  a  girth,  he 
manoeuvred  with  wonderful  adroitness  a  scythe  with  its 
handle  reversed,  which  served  him  as  lance  and  sabre  both. 

Just  as  Trigaud,  with  a  backward  blow,  brought  down  a 
gendarme  whom  Courte-Joie  had  only  dismounted,  great 
shouts  of  triumph  burst  from  the  government  ranks,  and 
Maître  Jacques  and  his  men  beheld  a  woman  in  a  riding- 
habit  in  the  hands  of  the  Blues,  who  seemed,  even  in  the 
midst  of  the  fight,  to  be  transported  with  joy.  It  was 
Bertha,  who,  still  preoccupied  by  her  search  for  Michel, 
had  imprudently  advanced  too  far  and  was  captured  by  the 
soldiers.  They,  being  deceived  b}r  her  dress,  mistook  her 
for  the  Duchesse  de  Berry;  hence  their  joy. 

Maître  Jacques  was  misled  like  the  rest.  Anxious  to 
repair  the  blunder  he  had  made  in  the  forest  of  Touvois, 
he  made  a  sign  to  his  men,  and  together  they  abandoned 
their  defensive  position,  and  rushing  forward,  thanks  to  a 
great  swathe  mown  down  by  Trigaud's  terrible  scythe, 
they  reached  the  prisoner,  seized  her,  and  placed  her  in 
their  midst. 

The  soldiers,  disappointed,  renewed  their  efforts,  and 
flung  themselves  on  Maître  Jacques  and  his  men,  who  had 


THE    BATTLEFIELD.  161 

promptly  regained  their  shelter  against  the  wall  of  the 
house  ;  and  the  little  group  became  a  centre  toward  which 
converged  the  points  of  twenty-five  bayonets,  and  a  con- 
tinuous fusillade  from  the  circumference  of  the  circle. 
Already  two  Vendéans  were  dead;  Maître  Jacques,  struck 
by  a  ball  which  broke  his  wrist,  was  forced  to  drop 
his  gun  and  take  to  his  sabre,  which  he  wielded  with  his 
left  hand.  Courte- Joie  had  exhausted  his  cartridges;  and 
Trigaud's  scythe  was  almost  the  only  protection  left  to 
the  four  surviving  Vendéans, — an  efficacious  protection 
hitherto,  for  it  laid  the  assailants  on  the  ground  in  such 
serried  ranks  that  the  soldiers  no  longer  dared  to  approach 
the  terrible  mendicant. 

But  Trigaud,  wishing  to  strike  a  direct  blow  at  a  horse- 
man, missed  his  aim.  The  scythe  struck  a  stone  and  flew 
into  a  thousand  bits  ;  the  giant  fell  to  his  knees,  so  violent 
was  the  force  of  his  impulsion  ;  the  girth  which  fastened 
Courte-Joie  to  his  shoulders  broke,  and  the  cripple  rolled 
into  the  midst  of  the  fray. 

A  loud  and  joyous  hurrah  greeted  this  accident,  which 
delivered  the  formidable  giant  into  the  hands  of  his  ene- 
mies ;  and  a  National  guard  was  in  the  act  of  raising  his 
bayonet  to  stab  the  fallen  cripple,  when  Bertha,  taking  a 
pistol  from  her  belt,  fired  upon  the  man  and  brought  him 
down  upon  the  body  of  Courte-Joie. 

Trigaud  had  risen  with  an  agility  scarcely  to  be  expected 
of  so  enormous  a  bulk;  his  separation  from  Courte-Joie 
and  the  danger  the  latter  was  in  increased  his  strength 
tenfold.  Using  the  handle  of  his  scythe,  he  disposed  of 
one  man  and  disabled  another.  With  a  single  kick  he 
sent  to  a  distance  of  several  feet  the  body  of  the  man  who 
had  fallen  upon  his  friend,  and  taking  the  latter  in  his 
arms,  as  a  nurse  lifts  a  child,  he  joined  Bertha  and  Maître 
Jacques  beneath  the  scaffolding. 

While  Courte-Joie  lay  on  the  pavement,  his  eyes,  roving 
about  him  with  the  rapidity  and  acuteness  of  a  man  in 
peril  of  death,  seeking  on  all  sides  for  a  chance  of  escape, 

VOL.    II.  —  11 


162  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

fell  on  the  scaffolding  where  they  noticed  a  heap  of  stones 
collected  by  the  masons  for  the  construction  of  the  wall. 

"Get  under  shelter  in  the  doorway,"  he  said  to  Bertha, 
when,  thanks  to  Trigaud,  he  found  himself  beside  her; 
"  perhaps  I  can  return  the  service  you  have  just  done  me. 
As  for  you,  Trigaud,  let  the  red-breeches  come  as  near  as 
they  please." 

In  spite  of  Trigaud's  thick  brain  he  at  once  understood 
what  his  companion  wanted  of  him  ;  for,  little  as  the  sound 
was  in  harmony  with  the  situation,  he  broke  into  a  peal  of 
laughter  that  resembled  the  braying  of  trumpets. 

The  soldiers,  seeing  the  three  disarmed  men,  and  wish- 
ing, at  any  cost,  to  recapture  the  woman  whom  they  still 
supposed  to  be  the  Duchesse  de  Berry,  came  nearer,  call- 
ing out  to  the  Vendéans  to  surrender.  But,  just  as  they 
stepped  beneath  the  scaffolding,  Trigaud,  who  had  placed 
Courte-Joie  near  Bertha,  sprang  to  one  of  the  joists  that 
supported  the  whole  erection,  seized  it  with  both  hands, 
shook  it,  and  tore  it  from  the  ground.  In  an  instant  the 
planks  tipped,  and  the  stones  piled  upon  them  followed 
their  incline  and  fell  like  hail,  beyond  Trigaud,  upon  eight 
or  ten  oC  the  foremost  soldiers. 

At  the  same  moment  the  Nantes  men,  led  by  Gaspard 
and  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  making  a  desperate  effort, 
firing,  sabring,  bayoneting  hand  to  hand,  had  driven 
back  the  Blues,  who  now  retreated  to  their  line  of  battle 
in  the  open  country,  where  their  superiority  in  num- 
bers and  also  in  weapons  would  infallibly  give  them  the 
victory. 

The  Vendéans,  rash  as  the  effort  was,  were  about  to  risk 
an  attack,  when  Maître  Jacques,  whom  his  men  had 
rejoined,  and  who,  in  spite  of  his  wound,  still  continued 
to  fight,  said  a  few  words  in  Gaspard's  ear.  The  latter 
immediately,  and  in  spite  of  the  commands  and  entreaties 
of  Petit-Pierre,  ordered  a  retreat  and  again  took  up  the 
position  he  had  occupied  an  hour  earlier  on  the  other  side 
of  the  village. 


i 


THE   BATTLEFIELD.  163 

Petit-Pierre  was  ready  to  tear  her  hair  with  anger,  and 
urgently  demanded  explanations,  which  Gaspard  did  not 
give  her  until  he  had  ordered  a  halt. 

"We  are  now  surrounded  by  five  or  six  thousand  men," 
he  said,  "and  we  ourselves  are  scarcely  six  hundred.  The 
honor  of  the  flag  is  safe,  and  that  is  all  we  can  hope  for." 

"Are  you  certain  of  that  ?  "  asked  Petit- Pierre. 

"Look  for  yourself,"  he  replied,  taking  her  to  a  rise  in 
the  ground  from  which  could  be  seen,  converging  on  all 
sides  toward  the  village  of  Chêne,  dark  masses  topped  with 
bayonets  which  sparkled  in  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun. 
There,  too,  they  heard  the  sound  of  drums  and  bugles 
approaching  from  all  the  points  of  the  horizon. 

"You  see,"  continued  Gaspard,  "that  in  less  than  an 
hour  we  shall  be  completely  surrounded,  and  no  resource 
will  then  remain  to  these  brave  men  —  who,  like  myself, 
cannot  away  with  Louis  Philippe's  prisons  —  but  to  get 
themselves  killed  upon  the  spot." 

Petit-Pierre  stood  for  some  moments  in  gloomy  silence  ; 
then,  convinced  of  the  truth  of  what  the  Vendéan  leader 
told  her,  beholding  the  destruction  of  the  hopes  which  a 
few  moments  earlier  had  seemed  to  her  ardent  mind  so 
strong  and  dauntless,  she  felt  her  courage  desert  her,  and 
she  became,  what  she  really  was,  a  woman;  she,  who  had 
so  lately  braved  fire  and  sword  with  the  nerve  of  a  hero, 
sat  down  by  the  wayside  and  wept,  disdaining  to  conceal 
the  tears  which  furrowed  her  cheeks. 


164  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 


XVII. 


AFTER    THE    FIGHT. 


Gaspard,  having  rejoined  his  companions,  thanked  them 
for  their  services,  told  them  of  the  state  of  things,  and 
dismissed  them  for  better  times, —  advising  them  to  disperse 
at  once,  and  thns  escape  all  pursuit  by  the  soldiers.  Then 
he  returned  to  Petit-Pierre,  whom  he  found  in  the  same 
place,  and  around  her  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  Bertha,  and 
a  few  Vendéans  who  would  not  think  of  their  own  safety 
till  certain  of  hers. 

"Well,"  asked  Petit-Pierre  when  Gaspard  returned  to 
her  alone,  " have  they  gone  ?  " 

"Yes;  they  could  do  no  more  than  they  have  done." 
"  Poor  souls  !  what  troubles  await  them  !  "  said  Petit- 
Pierre.  "Why  has  God  refused  me  the  consolation  of 
pressing  them  to  my  heart  ?  But  I  should  never  have 
had  the  strength;  they  do  right  to  leave  me  without  fare- 
well. Twice  to  suffer  thus  in  life  is  too  much  agony. 
Those  days  at  Cherbourg  !  —  I  hoped  I  might  never  see 
their  like  again." 

"Now,"  said  Gaspard,  "we  must  think  of  your  safety." 
"Oh,  never  mind  me  personally,"  replied  Petit-Pierre; 
"  my  sole  regret  is  that  the  balls  did  not  choose  to  come 
my  way.  My  death  would  not  have  given  you  the  victory, 
that  is  true;  but  at  least  the  struggle  would  have  been 
glorious.     And  now  what  are  we  to  do  ?  " 

"Wait  for  better  days.  You  have  proved  to  the  French 
people  that  a  valiant  heart  is  beating  in  your  bosom.  Cour- 
age is  the  principal  virtue  they  demand  of  their  rulers; 
they  will  remember  your  action,  never  fear." 


AFTER   THE    FIGHT.  165 

"God  wills  it!"  said  Petit-Pierre,  rising  and  leaning 
on  Gaspard's  arm,  who  led  her  from  the  hilltop  into  the 
road  across  the  plain.  The  government  troops,  who  did  not 
know  the  country,  were  forced  to  keep  to  the  main  roads. 

Gaspard  guided  the  little  company,  which  ran  no  risk 
in  the  open  country,  except  from  scouts  —  thanks  to  the 
knowledge  Maître  Jacques  possessed  of  paths  that  were 
almost  impassable;  they  reached  the  neighborhood  of  the 
Jacquet  mill  without  so  much  as  seeing  a  tricolor  cockade. 

As  they  went  along,  Bertha  approached  her  father  and 
asked  him  whether  in  the  midst  of  the  mêlée  he  had  seen 
or  heard  of  Baron  Michel;  but  the  old  gentleman,  horrified 
at  the  issue  of  the  insurrection  prepared  with  so  much  care 
and  so  quickly  stifled,  was  in  the  worst  of  humors,  and 
answered  gruffly  that  for  the  last  two  days  no  one  knew 
what  had  become  of  the  Baron  de  la  Logerie;  probably  he 
was  frightened,  and  had  basely  renounced  the  glory  he 
might  have  won  and  the  alliance  which  would  have  been 
the  reward  of  his  glory. 

This  answer  filled  Bertha  with  consternation.  Useless, 
however,  to  say  that  she  did  not  believe  one  word  of  what 
her  father  said;  but  her  heart  trembled  at  an  idea  which 
alone  seemed  to  her  probable,  — namely,  that  Michel  had 
been  killed,  or  at  any  rate  grievously  wounded.  She 
resolved  to  make  inquiries  of  every  one  until  she  dis- 
covered something  as  to  the  fate  of  the  man  she  loved. 
She  first  questioned  all  the  Vendéans.  None  of  them  had 
seen  Michel;  but  some,  impelled  by  the  old  hatred  against 
his  father,  expressed  themselves  about  the  son  in  terms 
that  were  not  less  vehement  than  those  of  the  marquis 
himself. 

Bertha  grew  frantic  with  distress;  nothing  short  of  pal- 
pable, visible,  undeniable  proof  could  have  forced  her  to 
admit  that  she  had  made  a  choice  unworthy  of  her,  and, 
though  all  appearances  were  against  Michel,  her  love, 
becoming  more  ardent,  more  impetuous  under  the  pressure 
of  such  accusations,  gave  her  strength  to  regard  them  as 


166  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

calumnies.  A  few  moments  earlier  her  heart  was  torn, 
her  brain  maddened  under  the  idea  that  Michel  had  met 
his  death  in  the  struggle;  and  now  that  glorious  death  had 
become  a  hope,  a  consolation  to  her  grief.  She  was  frantic 
to  acquire  the  cruel  certainty,  and  even  thought  of  return- 
ing to  Chêne,  visiting  the  battle-iield,  in  search  of  her 
lover's  body,  as  Edith  sought  that  of  Harold;  she  even 
dreamed  of  avenging  him  on  his  murderers  after  vindicat- 
ing his  memory  from  her  father's  aspersions.  The  girl  was 
reflecting  on  the  pretext  she  could  best  employ  to  remain 
behind  the  rest  and  return  to  Chêne,  when  Aubin  Courte- 
Joie  and  Trigaud,  the  rear-guard  of  the  company,  came  up 
and  were  about  to  pass  her.  She  breathed  more  freely; 
they,  no  doubt,  could  throw  some  light  upon  the  matter. 

"You,  my  brave  friends,"  she  said,  "can  you  give  me 
news  of  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie  ?  " 

"Yes,  indeed,  my  dear  young  lady,"  replied  Courte-Joie. 

"  Ah  !  "  cried  Bertha,  with  the  eagerness  of  hope,  "  he 
has  not  left  the  division  as  they  say  he  has,  has  he  ?  " 

"He  has  left  it,"  replied  Courte-Joie. 

"  When  ?  " 

"The  evening  before  the  fight  at  Maisdon." 

"  Good  God  !  ""  cried  Bertha,  in  a  tone  of  anguish.  "  Are 
you  sure  ?  " 

"  Quite  sure.  I  saw  him  meet  Jean  Oullier  at  the  Croix- 
Philippe;  and  we  walked  a  little  way  together." 

"With  Jean  Oullier  !  "  cried  Bertha.  "Oh  !  then  I  am 
satisfied;  Jean  Oullier  was  not  deserting.  If  Michel  is 
with  Jean  Oullier  he  has  done  nothing  cowardly  or 
dishonorable." 

Suddenly  a  terrible  thought  came  into  her  mind.  Why 
this  sudden  interest  on  Jean  Oullier 's  part  for  the  young 
man  ?  Why  had  Michel  followed  Jean  Oullier  rather  than 
the  marquis  ?  These  questions,  which  the  young  girl  put 
to  herself,  filled  her  heart  with  sinister  forebodings. 

"  And  you  say  you  saw  the  two  on  their  way  to  Clisson  ?  " 
she  said  to  Courte-Joie. 


AFTEK    THE   FIGHT.  167 

"With  my  own  eyes." 

"Do  you  know  what  is  going  on  at  Clisson  ?  " 

"It  is  too  far  from  here  to  have  got  the  details  as  yet,'* 
replied  Courte- Joie;  "  but  a  gars  from  Sainte-Lumine  over- 
took us  just  now  and  said  that  a  devilish  firing  had  been 
going  on  since  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  over  against 
Sèvre." 

Bertha  did  not  answer;  her  ideas  had  taken  another 
course.  She  saw  Michel  led  to  his  death  by  Jean  Oullier's 
hatred;  she  fancied  the  poor  lad  wounded,  panting,  aban- 
doned, lying  helpless  on  some  lonely  and  bloody  moor, 
calling  on  her  to  save  him. 

"Do  you  know  any  one  who  could  guide  me  to  Jean 
Oullier  ?  "  she  asked  Courte-Joie. 

"To-day?" 

"Now,  this  instant." 

"The  roads  are  covered  with  the  red-breeches." 

"The  woodpaths  are  not." 

"But  it  is  almost  night." 

"We  shall  be  all  the  safer.  Find  me  a  guide;  if  not,  I 
shall  start  alone." 

The  two  men  looked  at  each  other. 

"No  one  shall  guide  you  but  me,"  said  Aubin  Courte- Joie. 
"Do  I  not  owe  your  family  a  debt  of  gratitude  ?  Besides, 
Mademoiselle  Bertha,  you  did  me,  no  later  than  to-day,  a 
service  I  shall  never  forget,  —  in  knocking  up  the  bayonet 
of  that  National  guard  who  was  going  to  split  me." 

"Very  good;  then  drop  behind  and  wait  for  me  here  in 
this  wheat-field,"  said  Bertha.  "I  shall  be  back  in  fifteen 
minutes." 

Courte-Joie  and  Trigaud  lay  down  among  the  wheat  ears, 
and  Bertha,  hastening  her  steps,  rejoined  Petit-Pierre  and 
the  Vendéans  just  as  they  were  about  to  enter  the  mill. 
She  went  rapidly  up  to  the  little  room  she  occupied  with 
her  sister,  and  hurriedly  changed  her  clothes,  which  were 
covered  with  blood,  for  the  dress  of  a  peasant-woman. 
Coming  down,  she  found  Mary  busy  among  the  wounded, 


168  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

and  told  her,  without  explaining  her  plan,  not  to  feel 
uneasy  if  she  did  not  see  her  again  till  the  next  day.  She 
then  returned  to  the  wheat-field. 

Reserved  as  she  was  in  what  she  said  to  her  sister,  her 
face  was  so  convulsed  and  agitated  that  Mary  read  upon  it 
plainly  the  thoughts  that  filled  her  soul;  she  knew  of 
Michel's  disappearance,  and  she  did  not  doubt  that  Bertha's 
sudden  departure  was  caused  by  it.  After  the  scene  of  the 
previous  evening  Mary  dared  not  to  question  her  sister; 
but  a  new  anguish  was  added  to  those  which  already  rent 
her  heart,  and  when  she  was  called  to  mount  and  attend 
Petit-Pierre  in  search  of  another  refuge,  she  knelt  down 
and  prayed  to  God  that  her  sacrifice  might  not  be  useless, 
and  that  it  would  please  Him  to  protect  both  the  life  and 
honor  of  Bertha's  affianced  husband. 


THE   CHÂTEAU   DE   LA   PÉNISSIÈKE.  169 


XVIII. 

THE    CHÂTEAU    DE    LA    PENISSIERE. 

While  the  Vendéans  were  making  their  useless  but  not 
inglorious  fight  at  Chêne,  forty-two  of  their  number  were 
sustaining  a  struggle  at  Pénissière  de  la  Cour,  of  which 
the  memory  survives  in  history. 

These  forty-two  royalists,  who  were  part  of  the  Clisson 
division,  left  that  town  intending  to  march  to  the  village 
of  Cugan,  and  there  disarm  the  National  Guard.  A  fright- 
ful storm  forced  them  to  find  shelter  in  the  château  de  la 
Pénissière,  where  a  battalion  of  the  29th  regiment  of  the 
line,  informed  of  their  movements,  lost  no  time  in  besieging 
them. 

La  Pénissière  is  an  ancient  building,  with  a  single  story 
between  the  ground-floor  and  garret.  It  has  fifteen  irregu- 
larly shaped  windows.  The  chapel  backs  against  one  cor- 
ner of  the  château.  Beyond  it,  joining  the  valley,  are 
meadow-lands  divided  by  evergreen  hedges,  which  heavy 
rains  sometimes  transform  into  a  lake.  A  battlemented 
wall,  built  by  the  Vendéans,  surrounded  the  building. 

The  commanding  officer  of  the  battalion  of  the  line  had 
no  sooner  reconnoitred  the  situation  than  he  ordered  an 
immediate  attack.  After  a  short  defence  the  exterior  wall 
was  abandoned,  and  the  Vendéans  retreated  to  the  château, 
within  which  they  barricaded  themselves.  Each  man  took 
his  place  on  the  ground-floor,  and  on  the  main-floor;  and 
on  both  floors  a  bugler  was  stationed,  who  never  ceased  to 
sound  his  instrument  throughout  the  combat,  which  began 
with  rapid  volleys  from  the  windows,  so  well  directed  and 
so  vigorous  as  to  conceal  the  small  number  of  the  besieged. 


170  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Picked  men  and  the  best  shots  were  chosen  to  fire; 
they  discharged,  almost  without  stopping,  the  heavy  blun- 
derbusses which  their  comrades  reloaded  and  handed  back 
to  them.  Each  blunderbuss  carried  a  dozen  balls.  The 
Vendéans  fired  five  or  six  at  once;  the  effect  was  that  of 
a  discharge  of  grape-shot.  Twice  the  regular  troops 
attempted  an  assault;  they  came  within  twenty  paces  of 
the  château,  but  were  forced  to  retreat. 

The  commander  ordered  a  third  attack,  and  while  it  was 
preparing,  four  men,  assisted  by  a  mason,  approached  the 
château  by  a  gable-end,  which  had  no  outlook  on  the  gar- 
den, and  was  therefore  undefended.  Once  at  the  foot  of 
the  wall,  the  soldiers  raised  a  ladder,  and  reaching  the 
roof  uncovered  it,  flung  down  into  the  garret  inflamma- 
ble substances,  to  which  they  set  fire,  and  then  retreated. 
Immediately  a  column  of  smoke  burst  from  the  roof,  through 
which  the  flames  soon  forced  their  way. 

The  soldiers,  uttering  loud  cries,  again  marched  eagerly 
to  the  little  citadel,  which  seemed  to  be  flying  a  flag  of 
flame.  The  besieged  had  discovered  the  conflagration,  but 
there  was  no  time  to  extinguish  it;  besides,  the  flames 
were  pouring  upward,  and  they  trusted  that  after  destroy- 
ing the  roof  the  fire  might  burn  out  of  itself.  Accordingly 
they  replied  to  the  shouts  of  their  assailants  with  a  terrible 
fusillade,  —  the  bugles  never  ceasing  for  a  single  instant  to 
sound  their  joyous  and  warlike  notes. 

The  Whites  could  hear  the  Blues  saying  to  each  other: 
"They  are  not  men,  they  are  devils!"  and  this  military 
praise  inspired  them  with  fresh  ardor. 

Nevertheless,  a  reinforcement  of  fifty  men  having  reached 
the  besiegers,  the  commanding  officers  ordered  the  drum- 
mers to  beat  the  charge  ;  and  the  soldiers,  emulous  of  each 
other,  rushed  for  the  fourth  time  upon  the  château.  This 
time  they  reached  the  doors,  which  the  sappers  began  to 
batter  in.  The  Vendéan  leaders  ordered  their  men  on  the 
ground-floor  up  to  the  first  floor;  the  men  obeyed;  and 
while  one  half  of  the  besieged  continued  the  firing,   the 


THE    CHATEAU    DE    LA    PÉNISSIÈRE.  171 

other  half  pulled  up  the  boards  and  broke  through  the 
ceilings,  so  that  when  the  soldiers  entered  the  building 
they  were  greeted  with  a  volley  at  close  quarters,  poured 
down  upon  them  from  above  through  the  rafters.  Again, 
and  for  the  fourth  time,  they  were  forced  to  retreat. 

The  commander  of  the  battalion  then  ordered  his  men  to 
do  on  the  ground-floor  what  they  had  done  in  the  attic. 
Fascines  of  gorse  and  dried  fagots  were  thrown  through 
the  Avindows  into  the  rooms  of  the  lower  floor;  lighted 
torches  were  flung  after  them,  and  in  a  few  moments  the 
Vendéans  were  inclosed  in  fire  above  and  below  them. 
And  still  they  fought.  The  volumes  of  smoke  which 
issued  from  the  window  were  striped,  every  second  or  two, 
with  the  scarlet  flame  of  the  blunderbusses;  but  the  firing 
now  became  the  vengeance  of  despair  rather  than  an  effort 
of  defence.  It  seemed  impossible  for  the  little  garrison  to 
escape  death. 

The  place  was  no  longer  tenable  ;  beams  and  joists  were 
on  fire  and  were  cracking  beneath  the  feet  of  the  Vendéans  ; 
tongues  of  flame  began  to  dart  here  and  there  through  the 
floor;  at  any  moment  the  roof  might  fall  in  and  crush  them 
from  above,  or  the  floor  give  way  and  precipitate  them 
into  a  gulf  of  flame.     The  smoke  was  suffocating. 

The  Vendéan  leaders  took  a  desperate  resolution.  They 
determined  to  make  a  sortie  ;  but  to  give  it  any  chance  of 
success,  the  firing  would  have  to  be  kept  up  to  protect  the 
movement.  The  leaders  asked  if  any  would  volunteer  to 
sacrifice  themselves  for  the  safety  of  their  comrades. 

Eight  men  stepped  forward. 

The  troop  was  then  divided  into  two  squads.  Thirty- 
three  men  and  a  bugler  were  to  gain,  if  possible,  the 
farther  extremity  of  the  park,  which  was  closed  by  a 
hedge  only;  the  eight  others,  among  them  the  second 
bugler,  were  left  to  protect  the  attempt. 

In  consequence  of  these  arrangements,  and  while  those 
who  volunteered  to  remain  were  running  from  window  to 
window  and  keeping  up  a  vigorous  fire3  the  others  broke 


172  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

through  the  wall  on  the  opposite  side  to  where  the  soldiers 
were  attacking,  issued  in  good  order  with  the  bugler  at 
their  head,  and  made  their  way  at  a  quick  step  toward  the 
end  of  the  park  where  the  hedge  stood.  The  soldiers  fired 
upon  them  and  rushed  to  intercept  them.  The  Vendéans 
fired  back,  knocked  over  those  who  opposed  them,  escaped 
through  the  hedges,  leaving  five  of  their  number  dead,  and 
scattered  over  the  meadows,  which  were  then  under  water. 
The  bugler,  who  received  three  wounds,  never  ceased  to 
sound  his  bugle. 

As  for  the  men  who  remained  in  the  château,  they  still 
held  out.  Each  time  that  the  soldiers  attempted  to 
approach,  a  volley  issued  from  the  brazier  and  cut  a  swathe 
through  their  ranks.  This  lasted  for  half  an  hour.  The 
bugle  of  the  besieged  never  ceased  to  sound  through  the 
rattling  of  the  volleys,  the  crackling  of  the  flames,  the 
rumbling  of  the  falling  timbers,  like  a  sublime  defiance 
hurled  by  these  men  at  Death  standing  before  them. 

At  last,  an  awful  crash  was  heard  ;  clouds  of  smoke  and 
sparks  rose  high  in  air;  the  bugle  was  hushed,  the  firing 
ceased.  The  flooring  had  fallen  in,  and  the  little  garrison 
were  doubtless  swallowed  up  in  the  burning  gulf  beneath 
them  —  unless  a  miracle  had  happened. 

Such  was  the  opinion  of  the  soldiers,  who,  after  watch- 
ing the  ruins  for  some  moments,  and  hearing  no  cry  or 
moan  that  betrayed  the  presence  of  a  living  Vendéan, 
abandoned  the  furnace  which  was  burning  up  the  bodies  of 
both  friends  and  enemies;  so  that  nothing  remained  on 
the  scene  of  the  struggle,  lately  so  turbulent  and  noisy, 
but  the  red  and  smoking  flames  dying  down  in  silence, 
and  a  few  dead  bodies  lighted  by  the  last  glare  of  the 
conflagration. 

Thus  the  scene  remained  for  several  hours  of  the  night. 
But  about  one  o'clock  a  man  of  more  than  ordinary  height, 
gliding  beside  the  hedges,  or  crawling  when  obliged  to 
cross  a  path,  inspected  cautiously  the  surroundings  of  the 
château.     Seeing  nothing  that  warranted  distrust,  he  made 


THE   CHÂTEAU   DE   LA   PÉNISSIÈRE.  173 

the  round  of  the  devastated  building,  examining  attentively- 
all  the  bodies  he  found  ;  after  which  he  disappeared  among 
the  shadows.  Presently,  however,  he  returned,  carrying  a 
man  upon  his  back  and  accompanied  by  a  woman. 

These  men  and  this  woman,  as  our  readers  are  of  course 
aware,  were  Bertha,  Courte-Joie,  and  Trigaud. 

Bertha  was  pale;  her  firmness  and  her  habitual  resolu- 
tion had  given  way  to  a  sort  of  restless  bewilderment. 
From  time  to  time  she  hurried  before  her  guides,  and 
Courte-Joie  was  obliged  to  recall  her  to  prudence.  When 
the  three  debouched  from  the  wood  into  the  meadow  lately 
occupied  by  the  soldiers,  and  saw  in  front  of  them  the  fif- 
teen openings  which  stood  out,  red  and  gaping,  from  the 
blackened  wall,  like  so  many  vent-holes  out  of  hell,  the 
young  girl's  strength  gave  way;  she  fell  upon  her  knees 
and  cried  out  a  name  which  her  agony  transformed  into  a 
sob.  Then,  rising  like  a  man,  she  rushed  to  the  burning 
ruins. 

On  her  way  she  stumbled  over  something;  that  some- 
thing was  a  dead  body.  With  a  horrible  expression  of 
anguish  she  stooped  to  look  at  the  livid  face,  turning  it 
toward  her  by  the  hair.  Then,  seeing  other  bodies  scat- 
tered on  the  ground,  she  went  wildly  from  one  to  another 
as  if  beside  herself. 

"Alas  !  mademoiselle,"  said  Courte-Joie,  "he  is  not  here. 
To  spare  you  this  dreadful  sight,  I  had  already  ordered 
Trigaud,  who  came  here  first,  to  look  at  those  bodies.  He 
has  seen  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie  two  or  three  times,  and 
idiot  though  he  be,  you  can  be  sure  he  would  have  recog- 
nized him  were  he  here  among  the  dead." 

"Yes,  yes,  you  are  right;  and  if  he  is  anywhere  —  " 
cried  Bertha,  pointing  to  the  ruins;  and  before  the  two 
men  could  stop  her,  she  sprang  upon  the  sill  of  a  window 
on  the  ground-floor,  and  there,  standing  on  the  heated 
stone,  she  looked  down  into  the  gulf  of  fire  still  belching 
at  her  feet,  into  which  it  almost  seemed  as  though  she 
were  about  to  fling  herself. 


174  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

At  a  sign  from  Courte-Joie  Trigaud  seized  the  girl 
round  her  waist  and  placed  her  at  some  distance  on  the 
grass.  Bertha  made  no  resistance,  for  an  idea  had  just 
crossed  her  brain  which  paralyzed  her  will. 

"My  God  !  "  she  cried,  as  if  with  a  last  expiring  sigh  of 
her  former  strength,  "you  denied  me  the  power  to  defend 
him  or  to  die  with  him;  and  you  now  deny  me  the  conso- 
lation of  giving  burial  to  his  body." 

"But  mademoiselle,"  said  Courte-Joie,  "if  it  is  the  will 
of  the  good  God  you  must  resign  yourself  to  it." 

"Never  !  never  !  never  !  "  cried  Bertha,  with  the  excite- 
ment of  despair. 

"Alas  !  "  said  the  cripple,  "my  heart  is  heavy  too;  for 
if  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie  is  down  there,  so  is  poor  Jean 
Oullier." 

Bertha  groaned;  in  the  selfishness  of  her  grief  she  had 
never  once  thought  of  Jean  Oullier.  "It's  true,"  con- 
tinued Courte-Joie,  "he  dies  as  he  wished  to  die  —  with 
arms  in  his  hand;  but  that  doesn't  console  me  for  think- 
ing he  is  down  there." 

"Is  there  no  hope?"  cried  Bertha.  "Couldn't  they 
have  escaped  in  some  way  ?  Oh,  let  us  look  !  let  us 
search  !  " 

Courte-Joie  shook  his  head. 

"I  think  it  is  impossible.  After  what  that  man  of  the 
thirty-three  others  who  did  escape  told  us,  it  does  not 
seem  possible.  Five  of  those  who  made  the  sortie  were 
killed." 

"But  Jean  Oullier  and  Monsieur  Michel  were  among 
those  who  remained,"  said  Bertha. 

"No  doubt;  and  that  is  why  I  have  so  little  hope.  See," 
said  Courte-Joie,  pointing  to  the  walls,  which  rose  from 
their  foundations  to  the  eaves  without  a  fissure,  and  then 
recalling  Bertha's  eyes  by  a  gesture  to  the  furnace  of 
the  ground-floor,  where  the  roof  and  the  floors  were  still 
burning;  "see,  there  is  nothing  left  but  charred  remains 
and  walls   that  threaten  ruin.      Courage,    mademoiselle, 


THE   CHÂTEAU    DE    LA    PÉNISSIÈKE.  175 

courage,  for  there  is  not  one  chance  in  a  hundred  that  your 
lover  and  Jean  Oullier  have  escaped  that  wreck." 

"No,  no  !  "  cried  Bertha,  rising.  "No  !  I  say  he  cannot, 
he  shall  not  be  dead  !  If  it  needed  a  miracle  to  save  him 
God  has  performed  it.  I  will  dig  those  embers,  1  will 
sound  those  walls.  I  will  have  him,  dead  or  living  !  1 
say  I  will;  do  you  hear  me  Comte- Joie  ?  " 

Seizing  in  her  white  hands  a  beam  which  protruded  its 
charred  end  through  a  window,  Bertha  made  superhuman 
efforts  to  draw  it  toward  her,  as  if  with  that  lever  she 
could  lift  the  enormous  mass  of  material  and  discover  what 
it  concealed. 

"Don't  think  of  it!"  cried  Courte-Joie,  desperately; 
"the  work  is  beyond  your  strength,  mademoiselle,  and 
above  mine  and  even  Trigaud's.  Besides,  we  have  n't 
time  for  it;  the  soldiers  will  return  by  daybreak,  and  they 
mustn't  find  us  here.  Let  us  go,  mademoiselle;  for 
Heaven's  sake  let  us  go  at  once  !  " 

"You  may  go  if  you  like,"  said  Bertha,  in  a  tone  that 
allowed  of  no  objections.     "I  shall  stay  here." 

"  Stay  here  !  "  exclaimed  Courte-Joie,  horrified. 

"I  shall  stay.  If  the  soldiers  return  it  will  no  doubt 
be  for  the  purpose  of  searching  the  ruins.  I  will  throw 
myself  at  the  feet  of  their  commander;  my  prayers,  my 
tears  will  persuade  them  to  let  me  share  in  the  work,  and  I 
shall  find  him  —  oh,  yes,  I  shall  find  him  !  " 

"You  are  mistaken,  mademoiselle;  the  red-breeches  will 
know  you  as  the  daughter  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday.  If 
they  don't  shoot  you,  they  '11  take  you  prisoner.  Come 
away  !  it  will  be  daylight  soon.  Come,  and  if  necessary," 
added  Courte-Joie,  alarmed  at  the  girl's  determination, 
"if  necessary,  I  promise  to  bring  you  back  to-morrow 
night." 

"  No,  I  tell  you,  no,  —  I  will  not  go  away  !  "  answered 
the  young  girl.  "Something  tells  me  here"  (and  she 
struck  her  breast)  "that  he  is  calling  me,  he  wants  me." 

Then,  as  Trigaud  advanced,  on  a  sign  from  Courte-Joie, 


176  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

apparently  to  seize  her,  she  cried  out,  springing  once  more 
to  the  sill  of  the  window  :  — 

"Come  a  step  nearer,  and  I  will  jump  into  that  furnace." 

Courte- Joie,  perceiving  that  nothing  could  be  obtained  of 
Bertha  by  force,  was  about  to  resort  to  prayers,  when  Tri- 
gaud,  who  had  remained  standing  with  his  arms  stretched 
out  in  the  position  he  had  taken  to  seize  the  young  girl, 
made  a  sign  to  his  companion  to  be  silent. 

Courte-Joie,  who  knew  by  experience  the  extraordinary 
acuteness  of  the  poor  fool's  senses,  obeyed  him.  Trigaud 
listened. 

"Are  the  soldiers  returning  ?"  asked  Courte-Joie. 

"No;  it  is  not  that,"  replied  Trigaud. 

Then,  unbinding  Courte-Joie,  who  was  strapped  as  usual 
to  his  shoulders,  he  lay  down  flat  on  his  stomach  with  his 
ear  to  the  ground.  Bertha,  without  coming  down  from 
her  present  post,  turned  her  head  to  the  mendicant  and 
watched  him.  The  movement  he  had  made,  the  words  he 
had  said,  caused  her  heart,  she  knew  not  why,  to  beat 
violently. 

"  Do  you  hear  anything  extraordinary  ?  "  asked  Courte- 
Joie. 

"Yes,"  replied  Trigaud. 

Then  he  made  a  sign  to  Courte-Joie  and  Bertha  to  listen 
likewise.      Trigaud,  as  we  know,  was  stingy  of  words. 

Courte-Joie  lay  down  with  his  ear  to  the  earth.  Bertha 
sprang  down  from  the  window,  and  it  was  but  a  second 
after  she  had  laid  her  ear  to  the  ground  before  she  rose 
again,  crying  out  :  — 

"  They  are  alive  !  they  are  alive  !  Oh,  my  God,  I  thank 
thee  !  " 

"Don't  let  us  hope  too  soon,"  said  Courte-Joie;  "but  I 
do  hear  a  dull  sound  which  seems  to  come  from  the  depths 
of  those  ruins.  But  there  were  eight  of  them;  we  can't 
be  sure  the  sound  comes  from  the  two  we  seek." 

"Not  sure,  Aubin!  My  presentiment,  which  would  not 
let  me  go  away  when  you  begged  me,  makes  me  sure  of  it. 


THE    CHATEAU   DE   LA   PÉNISSIÈRE.  177 

Our  friends  are  there,  I  tell  you;  they  found  a  shelter  in 
some  cellar  where  they  are  now  imprisoned  by  the  fall  of 
these  materials." 

"It  may  be  so,"  replied  Courte-Joie. 

"It  is  certainly  so  !  "  cried  Bertha.  "But  how  can  we 
release  them  ?  How  shall  we  reach  the  place  where  they 
are  ?  " 

"If  they  are  in  a  vault,  the  vault  must  have  an  opening; 
if  they  are  in  a  cellar,  the  cellar  has  a  window." 

"Well,  then,  if  we  can't  find  either  we  must  dig  out  the 
earth  and  through  the  foundation-wall." 

So  saying,  Bertha  began  to  go  round  the  building,  drag- 
ging aside  with  frenzied  motions  the  beams,  stones,  tiles, 
and  other  fragments  which  had  fallen  beside  the  outer  wall 
and  now  hid  its  base. 

Suddenly  she  gave  a  cry.  Trigaud  and  Courte-Joie  ran 
to  her,  —  one  on  his  great  legs,  the  other  on  his  stumps  and 
hands,  with  the  rapidity  of  a  batrachian. 

"  Listen  !  "  said  Bertha,  triumphantly. 

Sure  enough,  on  the  spot  where  she  stood  they  heard 
distinctly  a  dull  but  continued  sound  coming  from  the 
depths  of  the  ruined  building,  —  a  sound  like  that  of  some 
tool  or  instrument  striking  steady  and  regular  blows  on 
the  foundations. 

"This  is  the  place,"  said  Bertha,  pointing  to  an  enor- 
mous pile  of  rubbish  heaped  against  the  wall.  "We  shall 
find  them  here." 

Trigaud  set  to  work.  He  began  by  pushing  away  a 
whole  section  of  the  roof  which  had  slid  down  outside  the 
building  and  now  lay  vertically  against  the  wall.  Then 
he  threw  aside  the  loose  stones  piled  there  by  the  fall  of 
a  window-casing  on  the  first  floor  ;  and  finally,  after  won- 
derful feats  of  strength,  he  laid  bare  an  opening  through 
which  the  sounds  of  the  labor  of  the  buried  men  came  to 
them  distinctly. 

Bertha  wanted  to  pass  through  the  opening  as  soon  as  it 
was  practicable;  but  Trigaud  held  her  back.     He  took  a 

VOL.    II. —  12 


178  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

fallen  lath,  lit  it  by  the  embers,  fastened  the  girth,  which 
usually  held  Courte- Joie  to  his  shoulders,  round  the  latter' s 
waist,  and  lowered  him  into  the  cavity. 

Bertha  and  Trigaud  held  their  breaths.  Courte-Joie's 
voice  was  heard,  speaking  to  some  one;  then  he  gave  a 
signal  to  be  hoisted  up.  Trigaud  obeyed  with  the  alacrity 
of  a  well-fed  animal. 

"  Living  ?  are  they  living  ?  "  cried  Bertha,  in  anguish. 

"Yes,  mademoiselle,  but  for  God's  sake  don't  attempt 
to  go  down  there  ;  they  are  not  in  the  cellar,  but  in  a  sort 
of  niche  beyond  it.  The  opening  through  which  they  got 
there  is  blocked.  "We  must  break  through  the  Avail  to 
reach  them;  and  I  am  very  much  afraid  that  may  bring 
down  the  roof  of  the  cellar  upon  them.  Let  me  direct 
Trigaud." 

Bertha  fell  on  her  knees  and  prayed.  Courte-Joie  col- 
lected a  number  of  dry  laths  and  returned  to  the  cellar; 
Trigaud  followed  him. 

At  the  end  of  ten  minutes,  which  seemed  to  Bertha  as 
many  centuries,  a  loud  noise  of  crashing  stones  was  heard. 
A  cry  of  anguish  escaped  her;  she  darted  to  the  opening 
and  there  met  Trigaud  coming  up,  bearing  on  his  shoulder 
the  body  of  a  man  bent  double,  whose  pale  face  was  hang- 
ing down  upon  the  giant's  breast.  Bertha  recognized 
Michel. 

"  He  is  dead  !  Oh,  my  God  !  he  is  dead  !  "  she  cried,  not 
daring  to  go  up  to  him. 

"No,  no,"  said  a  voice  from  below,  which  Bertha  recog' 
nized  as  that  of  Jean  Oullier,  "no,  he  is  not  dead." 

At  these  words  the  girl  sprang  forward,  took  Michel 
from  Trigaud's  hands,  laid  him  on  the  grass,  and  quite 
reassured  by  the  beating  of  his  heart,  endeavored  to  bring 
back  his  senses  by  bathing  his  forehead  with  water  from 
a  pool. 


THE    MOOR   OF    BOUAIMÉ.  17.' 


XIX. 


THE    MOOR   OF    BOUAIME. 


While  Bertha  endeavored  to  bring  Michel  from  his  swoon 
(which  was  chiefly  caused  by  suffocation)  Jean  Oullier 
reached  the  outer  air,  followed  by  Courte-Joie,  whom 
Trigaud  drew  up  by  the  same  means  he  had  used  to  lower 
him.     A  moment  more  and  all  three  were  safely  outside. 

"Ah  ça  !  were  you  the  only  ones  in  there  ?  "  said  Courte  - 
Joie  to  Jean  Oullier. 

"Yes." 

"And  the  others  ?" 

"They  took  refuge  under  the  stairway;  the  ceiling  fell 
before  they  had  time  to  get  to  us." 

"  A  re  they  dead  ?  " 

"I  don't  think  so;  for  about  an  hour  after  the  soldiers 
left  we  heard  the  stones  moving  and  voices.  We  called  to 
them,  but  they  did  not  hear." 

"It  is  a  lucky  chance  we  came." 

"  That  it  is  ;  without  you  I  could  never  have  got  through 
that  wall,  especially  with  the  young  baron  in  such  a  state. 
Ha  !  I  've  made  a  fine  campaign  of  it,  faith,"  muttered 
Jean  Oullier,  shaking  his  head  as  he  looked  at  Bertha, 
who,  having  drawn  Michel's  head  and  shoulders  on  her 
knees  and  brought  him  to  his  senses,  was  now  expressing 
to  him  all  the  happiness  she  felt  in  recovering  him. 

"And  it  is  not  over  yet,"  said  Courte-Joie,  ignorant  of 
the  meaning  the  old  Vendéan  gave  to  his  words,  and 
anxiously  looking  to  the  east,  where  a  broad  purple  line 
announced  that  the  day  was  breaking. 

"  What  do  vou  mean  ?  "  asked  Jean  Oullier. 


180  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"I  mean  that  two  hours  more  of  darkness  would  have 
mightily  helped  our  safety;  a  cripple,  a  fainting  man, 
and  a  woman  are  not  so  easy  to  manœuvre  on  a  retreat. 
Besides,  the  victors  in  yesterday's  fight  will  swarm  upon 
the  roads  to-day  —  if  they  don't  beat  the  woods." 

"Yes;  but  I  'm  at  ease  now.  I  don't  have  that  roof 
over  my  head." 

"You  are  only  half  saved  yet,  my  good  Jean." 

"Well,  let  us  take  precautions." 

So  saying,  Jean  Oullier  began  to  search  for  the  car- 
tridge-boxes of  the  dead,  and  took  their  contents.  Then  he 
loaded  his  gun  as  coolly  as  though  he  were  starting  on  a 
hunt,  and  went  up  to  Bertha  and  Michel.  The  eyes  of  the 
latter  were  closed  as  if  he  were  unconscious. 

"Can  you  walk  ?  "  Jean  Oullier  said  to  him. 

Michel  did  not  answer.  When  he  first  opened  his  eyes 
he  saw  Bertha,  and  closed  them  hastily,  conscious  of  the 
difficulties  of  his  position. 

"  Can  you  walk  ?  "  repeated  Bertha,  in  a  tone  which  the 
latter  could  no  longer  pretend  not  to  hear. 

"I  think  so,"  he  replied. 

In  point  of  fact  he  had  only  a  flesh  wound  in  the  arm; 
the  bone  was  not  injured. 

Bertha  had  examined  the  wound  and  slung  the  arm  about 
his  neck  with  her  white  silk  cravat. 

"If  you  can't  walk,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  "I  '11  carry  you." 

At  this  fresh  proof  of  the  change  in  Jean  Oullier's  feel- 
ings to  the  young  baron,  Bertha  went  up  to  him. 

"You  must  explain  to  me  why  you  took  away  my 
betrothed  husband,"  she  said,  emphasizing  the  last  two 
words;  "and  why  you  persuaded  him  to  leave  his  post  and 
be  dragged  into  this  affair  which  has  exposed  him,  in  spite 
of  all  the  dangers  he  may  have  met,  to  serious  and  shame- 
ful accusations." 

"If  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie's  reputation  has  suffered 
through  me,"  replied  Jean  Oullier,  gently,  "I  will  repair 
it." 


THE   MOOR   OF   BOUAIMÉ.  181 

"  You  ?  "  said  Bertha,  more  and  more  astonished. 

"Yes,"  said  Jean  Oullier;  "for  I  can  and  will  say  openly 
that  with  all  his  effeminate  ways,  this  young  man  has 
shown  himself  to  be  full  of  courage  and  constancy." 

"Will  you  really  do  that,  Jean  Oullier  ?"  cried  Bertha. 

"Not  only  will  I  do  it,"  said  the  old  Vendéan,  "but  if 
my  testimony  is  not  enough  I  will  get  that  of  the  brave 
men  beside  whom  he  fought,  —  for  I  now  desire  that  his 
name  be  counted  honorable  and  honored." 

"  Is  it  possible  that  you  say  that,  Jean  Oullier  ?  " 

Jean  Oullier  nodded. 

"  You  who  would  rather  see  me  dead  than  bearing  that 
name  ?  " 

"  That 's  how  things  change  in  this  world,  Mademoiselle 
Bertha.  I  desire  now  to  see  Monsieur  Michel  my  master's 
son-in-law." 

Jean  Oullier  said  the  words  with  a  look  so  expressive 
and  a  voice  so  sad  and  meaning,  that  Bertha  felt  her  heart 
tighten,  and  she  thought  involuntarily  of  Mary.  She  was 
about  to  question  the  old  keeper,  but,  at  that  moment,  the 
sound  of  trumpets  came  down  upon  the  wind  from  the 
direction  of  Clisson. 

"Courte-Joie  was  right  !  "  exclaimed  Jean  Oullier. 
"The  explanation  you  ask  of  me,  Bertha,  you  shall  have 
as  soon  as  circumstances  permit;  for  the  present  we  must 
think  of  our  own  safety."  Then,  listening  attentively, 
he  added:  "Come,  let  us  start  !  there  's  not  an  instant  to 
lose,  I  '11  answer  for  that." 

Passing  his  hand  through  Michel's  well  arm  to  support 
him,  he  gave  the  signal  to  depart.  Courte-Joie  was 
already  perched  on  Trigaud's  shoulders. 

"  Which  way  shall  we  go  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Better  make  for  the  lonely  farmhouse  of  Saint-Hilaire," 
replied  Jean  Oullier,  who  felt  Michel  staggering  under  his 
first  few  steps.  "It  is  quite  impossible  that  Monsieur 
Michel  should  do  the  twent}^  miles  to  Machecoul." 

"Straight  for  Saint-Hilaire,  then,"  said  Courte-Joie. 


182  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

In  spite  of  their  slow  advance,  by  reason  of  Michel's 
feebleness  in  walking,  they  were  not  more  than  a  few  hun- 
dred steps  from  the  farm,  when  Trigaud  showed  his  rider 
with  some  pride  a  sort  of  club  he  had  been  peeling  and 
polishing  with  his  knife  as  he  walked  along.  It  was  made 
from  the  stem  of  a  wild  apple-tree,  of  suitable  length, 
which  Trigaud  had  spied  in  the  orchard  at  Pénissière;  he 
thought  it  admirably  suited  to  replace  the  terrible  scythe 
he  had  shattered  at  Chêne. 

Courte-Joie  gave  a  cry  of  anger.  Evidently  he  did  not 
share  the  satisfaction  with  which  his  companion  flourished 
the  knotty  bulk  of  his  new  weapon. 

"The  devil  take  that  animal  to  the  lowest  hell!"  he 
cried. 

"  What 's  the  matter  ?  "  asked  Jean  Chillier,  leaving 
Michel  to  Bertha's  care  and  hurrying  on  to  join  Courte- 
Joie  and  Trigaud. 

"  Matter  !  "  cried  Courte- Joie,  "  the  matter  is  that  this 
brute  has  put  the  whole  band  of  the  red-breeches  on  our 
track  !  May  the  plague  choke  me  for  not  having  thought 
of  it  before  !  Ever  since  we  left  La  Pénissière  he  has 
been  a  regular  Tom  Thumb;  and,  unluckily  for  us,  it  is  n't 
bread  crumbs  he  has  strewn  along  the  way,  but  the  twigs, 
leaves,  bark  of  his  tree.  Those  scoundrelly  soldiers,  who, 
I  have  n't  a  doubt,  will  find  out  that  we  dug  among  the 
embers,  are  by  this  time  at  the  other  end  of  the  trail 
this  animal  has  provided  for  them.  Ah,  double,  treble, 
quadruple,  brute  !  "  concluded  Courte -Joie,  by  way  of 
peroration. 

Joining  action  to  words  he  brought  down  his  fist  with 
all  his  might  on  the  skull  of  the  giant,  who  seemed  no 
more  conscious  of  the  blow  than  if  Courte-Joie  had  merely 
passed  his  hand  through  his  hair. 

"Damn  it  !"  said  Jean  Oullier,  "what's  to  be  done 
now  ?  " 

"  Give  up  the  farm  at  Saint-Hilaire,  where  they  'd  catch 
us  like  mice  in  a  trap." 


THE   MOOR   OF   BOUAIMÉ.  18,5 

"But,"  said  Bertha,  quickly,  "Monsieur  Michel  cannot 
possibly  go  any  farther.     See  how  pale  he  is  !  " 

"Let  us  bear  to  the  right,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  "and  make 
for  the  Bouaimé  moor,  where  we  can  hide  among  the  rocks. 
To  walk  faster  and  leave  fewer  tracks,  I  '11  take  Monsieur 
Michel  on  my  shoulders.  We  '11  walk  in  file,  and  Trigaud's 
steps  will  hide  the  rest." 

The  Bouaimé  moor,  toward  which  Jean  Oullier  now 
guided  the  little  troop,  lies  about  three  miles  from  the 
village  of  Saint-Hilaire;  the  river  Maine  must  be  crossed 
to  reach  it.  It  extends  on  the  north  as  far  as  Remouillé 
and  Montbert;  the  lay  of  the  land  is  very  uneven  and  it  is 
strewn  with  granite  rocks,  some  evidently  placed  there  by 
the  hand  of  man.  Druidic  stones  and  dolmens  lift  their 
brown  heads  crowned  with  moss  amid  tufts  of  heather 
and  the  yellow  flowers  of  the  gorse  and  broom.  It  was 
to  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  these  stones  that  Jean 
Oullier  now  guided  the  little  caravan.  This  stone  was 
flat,  and  rested  on  four  enormous  corner-stones  of  granite. 
Ten  or  a  dozen  persons  could  easily  have  lain  in  its 
shadow. 

Michel  was  no  sooner  there  than  he  gave  way  entirely, 
and  would  have  fallen  flat  on  the  ground  if  Bertha  had  not 
supported  him.  She  hastened  to  gather  ferns,  which  she 
spread  beneath  the  dolmen;  and  Michel  wa,s  no  sooner  laid 
upon  them  than,  in  spite  of  the  gravity  of  the  situation,  he 
fell  soundly  asleep. 

Trigaud  was  stationed  as  sentinel  on  the  dolmen; 
aboriginal  statue  on  an  aboriginal  pedestal,  he  called  to 
mind  by  his  mighty  outline  the  giants  of  two  thousand 
years  ago,  who  raised  that  altar.  Courte-Joie,  unstrapped, 
lay  down  to  rest  near  Michel,  whom  Bertha  would  not 
leave,  in  spite  of  the  exhaustion,  both  moral  and  physical, 
which  the  fatigues  of  the  previous  day  and  night  had 
entailed  upon  her.  Jean  Oullier  walked  away,  partly  to 
reconnoitre  the  situation,  and  partly  to  obtain  provisions, 
of  which  they  stood  greatly  in  need. 


184  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

For  about  two  hours  Trigaud's  eyes  had  roved  over  the 
broad  expanse  of  the  savanna  before  and  around  him. 
Not  a  sound  had  reached  his  ear,  attentively  listening, 
except  the  monotonous  hum  of  bees  and  wasps  pilfering 
sweetness  from  the  broom  and  the  wild  thyme.  The  mists 
which  the  sun  was  drawing  from  the  earth  began  to  assume 
to  Trigaud's  eyes  a  variety  of  rainbow  tints,  the  shimmer- 
ings  of  which,  added  to  the  rays  of  the  sun,  which  were 
now  falling  plumb  on  his  tufts  of  red  hair,  benumbed  his 
brain;  various  somniferous  combinations  were  about  to 
plunge  him  into  a  siesta,  not  induced,  unfortunately  for 
him,  by  any  meal,  when  the  sudden  report  of  a  fire-arm 
roused  him  from  his  torpor. 

He  looked  in  the  direction  of  Saint-Hilaire  and  saw  the 
white  vapor  produced  by  the  shot.  Next,  he  saw  a  man 
running  at  full  speed,  apparently  making  for  the  dolmen. 
With  one  bound  Trigaud  was  off  his  pedestal.  Bertha, 
who  had  resisted  sleep,  heard  the  shot  and  immediately 
waked  up  Courte-Joie. 

Trigaud  took  the  cripple  in  his  arms  and  hoisted  him 
above  his  head  till  he  was  fully  ten  feet  off  the  ground, 
saying  but  two  words,  which,  however,  needed  no  com- 
mentary :  — 

"Jean  Oullier." 

Courte-Joie  shaded  his  eyes  with  his  hand  and  had  no 
difficulty  in  recognizing  the  old  Vendéan;  but  he  noticed 
that  instead  of  making  direct  for  the  dolmen,  Jean  Oullier 
had  taken  to  the  opposite  hill  and  was  heading  for  Mont- 
bert.  He  also  observed  that  instead  of  running  on  the 
slope  of  the  hill,  where  he  might  have  been  sheltered  from 
the  eyes  of  his  pursuers,  the  old  huntsman  had  chosen  the 
most  exposed  places,  keeping  in  full  view  of  whoever  was 
within  three  miles  of  him. 

Jean  Oullier,  he  knew,  was  far  too  wary  to  act  heed- 
lessly; he  must  have  some  good  reason  for  his  present 
behavior;  no  doubt  he  was  attracting  the  enemy's  atten- 
tion to  himself  in  order  to  divert  it  from  the  rest  of  the 


THE    MOOR    OF   BOUAIMÉ.  185 

party.  Courte-Joie  therefore  concluded  that  the  wisest 
thing  for  him  and  his  companions  to  do  was  to  stay  in 
their  present  shelter  and  await  events,  carefully  watching, 
meantime,  all  that  happened. 

Whenever  intelligence  was  needed  instead  of  senses, 
Courte-Joie  no  longer  trusted  to  Trigaud.  He  had  him- 
self hoisted  to  the  top  of  the  dolmen,  although,  small 
as  his  truncated  body  was,  he  thought  best  not  to  display 
it  too  openly  on  that  pedestal.  He  therefore  lay  down 
flat  on  his  stomach  with  his  face  turned  in  the  direction  of 
the  hill  up  which  Jean  Oullier  was  proceeding. 

Soon,  at  the  very  place  whence  the  Vendéan  had  issued, 
he  saw  a  soldier,  then  another,  then  a  third;  he  counted 
them  up  to  twenty.  They  did  not  seem  eager  to  measure 
speed  with  their  game;  they  simply  spread  over  the  moor 
to  cut  off  his  retreat  in  case  he  attempted  to  return.  These 
equivocal  tactics  increased  Courte- Joie's  watchfulness  ;  for 
they  led  him  to  think  that  the  soldiers  had  some  other 
object  in  view  than  the  mere  pursuit  of  the  Vendéan.  The 
hill  which  the  latter  was  mounting  ended,  about  half  a 
mile  from  the  point  where  Jean  Oullier  then  was,  in  a 
sharp  point  of  rocks,  at  the  foot  of  which  was  a  bog.  It 
was  on  that  spot,  no  doubt  because  Jean  Oullier  was  aim- 
ing for  it,  that  Courte-Joie 's  attention  was  now  fixed. 

"  Hum  !  "  said  Trigaud,  suddenly. 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  asked  Courte-Joie. 

"Red-breeches,"  replied  the  other,  pointing  to  the  bog. 

Courte-Joie  followed  the  direction  of  Trigaud's  finger 
and  saw  the  barrel  of  a  gun  in  the  midst  of  the  reeds  ;  then 
a  form.  It  was  that  of  a  soldier,  and  he,  like  the  one  first 
seen  on  the  heath,  was  followed  by  twenty  others.  Courte- 
Joie  saw  them  crouching  among  the  reeds  like  sportsmen  on 
the  watch.  Their  game  was  Jean  Oullier.  If  he  descended 
by  the  point  of  rocks,  as  he  was  evidently  about  to  do,  he 
must  fall  into  the  ambush. 

There  was  not  a  moment  to  be  lost  in  warning  him. 
Courte-Joie  did  not  hesitate;  he  seized  his  gun  and  fired 


186  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

it,  taking  care  to  hold  the  muzzle  below  the  bushes  and 
to  fire  behind  the  dolmen.  Then  he  looked  hastily  back  to 
the  scene  of  action. 

Jean  Oullier  had  heard  the  signal  and  knew  the  ring 
of  Courte- Joie's  little  gun;  he  was  not  mistaken  for  a 
moment  as  to  the  reasons  that  constrained  his  friend  to 
abandon  the  concealment  he  was  preserving  for  them  at 
such  cost  to  himself.  Instantly  he  made  a  half  turn,  and 
instead  of  continuing  his  way  to  the  steep  descent  and  the 
bog,  he  rapidly  descended  the  hill  he  had  been  climbing. 
He  no  longer  ran,  he  flew;  no  doubt  some  plan  had  occurred 
to  him,  and  he  was  hurrying  to  put  it  into  execution.  At 
the  rate  he  was  coming  down  he  would  join  his  friends  in 
a  few  moments. 

But  in  spite  of  Courte-Joie's  precautions  to  conceal  the 
smoke  of  his  shot,  the  soldiers  had  seen  the  direction  from 
which  it  came,  and  those  on  the  moor  as  well  as  those  in 
the  bog  joined  forces  behind  Jean  Oullier  (who  was  still 
coming  down  at  a  great  pace),  and  seemed  to  be  consulting 
together  while  awaiting  orders. 

Courte-Joie  glanced  about  him,  apparentl}7  studying  each 
point  of  the  horizon  ;  he  wet  a  finger  and  lifted  it  to  dis- 
cover the  direction  of  the  wind,  and  felt  the  heather  anx- 
iously, to  be  sure  that  the  sun,  which  was  hot,  and  the 
wind,  which  was  keen,  had  dried  it  thoroughly. 

"  What  are  you  doing  ?  "  asked  Bertha,  who  had  watched 
the  different  phases  of  this  prologue,  fully  aware  of  the 
imminence  of  the  danger,  and  was  now  helping  Michel, 
who  seemed  more  depressed  than  suffering,  to  get  on  his 
feet. 

"What  am  I  doing,  —  or  rather  what  am  I  going  to  do, 
my  dear  young  lady  ?  "  replied  the  cripple.  "  I  am  going 
to  make  a  glorious  bonfire;  and  you  can  boast  to-night,  if 
the  fire  saves  you,  as  I  hope  it  will,  that  you  never  saw 
the  like  before." 

So  saying,  he  gave  Trigaud  several  lighted  bits  of  tinder, 
which  the  latter  stuck  into  bundles  of  dried  herbage,  which 


THE    MOOR    OF   BOUAIMÉ.  187 

he  placed  at  intervals  of  ten  feet  among  the  heather,  blow- 
ing each  of  them  into  a  flame  with  his  powerful  lungs. 
He  was  placing  his  last  bundle  as  Jean  Oullier  came  up 
the  slope,  which  led  to  the  dolmen. 

"  Up  !  up  !  "  cried  the  latter.  "  I  am  not  ten  minutes  in 
advance  of  them." 

"Yes,  but  this  will  give  us  twenty,"  said  Courte- Joie 
pointing  to  the  twigs  of  heather  which  were  beginning  to 
curl  and  crackle  with  the  flames,  while  a  dozen  or  more 
spiral  lines  of  smoke  were  rising  in  the  air. 

"That  fire  won't  burn  fast  enough  or  hot  enough  to  stop 
them,"  said  Jean  Oullier.  "Besides,"  he  added,  after 
studying  the  condition  of  the  atmosphere,  "the  wind  will 
send  the  flame  in  the  direction  that  we  must  take." 

"Yes;  but  flame,  gars  Oullier,  carries  smoke,"  said 
Courte-Joie,  triumphantly;  "and  that 's  what  I  'm  counting 
on.  The  smoke  will  hide  how  few  we  are  and  where  we 
are  going." 

"Ah!  Courte-Joie,  Courte-Joie,"  muttered  Oullier 
between  his  teeth,  "  if  you  had  your  legs  what  a  poacher 
you  'd  be  !  " 

Then,  without  saying  another  word,  he  picked  Michel 
up  and  put  him  on  his  shoulders  (in  spite  of  the  young 
man's  assurance  that  he  could  walk  well  enough,  and  did 
not  wish  to  cause  that  additional  fatigue  to  the  old  Ven- 
déan),  and  followed  Trigaud,  who  had  already  started  with 
his  rider  on  his  back. 

"Take  mademoiselle's  hand!"  called  Courte-Joie  to 
Jean  Oullier;  "and  tell  her  to  shut  her  mouth  and  take  in 
a  long  breath;  in  ten  minutes  we  sha'n't  be  able  to  see  or 
breathe." 

In  fact  the  ten  minutes  had  not  expired  before  the  ten 
columns  of  smoke  were  blended  into  one  and  formed  a 
dense  sheet  stretching  to  right  and  left  five  hundred  feet, 
while  the  flames  roare«l  sullenly  behind  them. 

"  Can  you  see  sufficiently  to  guide  us  ?  "  said  Jean 
Oullier  to  Courte-Joie;  "for  the  most  important  thing  of 
all  is  not  to  go  astray,  and  next,  not  to  get  separated." 


188  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"We  have  no  other  guide  than  the  smoke,"  replied 
Courte-Joie.  "  Let  us  follow  that  boldly  and  it  will  take 
us  where  we  want  to  go;  hut  don't  lose  sight  of  Trigaud 
as  head  of  the  column." 

Jean  Oullier  was  one  of  those  men  who  know  the  value 
of  words  and  time;  he  therefore  contented  himself  with 
saying  :  — 

"  Forward,  march  !  "  giving  the  example  and  seeming  no 
more  hindered  by  Michel's  weight  than  Trigaud  was  by 
Courte-Joie's. 

They  walked  thus  for  fifteen  minutes  without  getting 
out  of  the  smoke  which  their  conflagration,  spreading  with 
amazing  rapidity  under  the  force  of  the  wind,  rolled  up 
about  them.  Once  or  twice  Jean  Oullier  muttered  to 
Bertha,  who  was  half  suffocated  :  — 

"  Can  you  breathe  ?  " 

To  which  she  replied  with  an  almost  inarticulate  yes. 
As  for  Michel,  the  old  keeper  cared  not  at  all;  he  was  cer- 
tain to  keep  up  with  the  rest,  inasmuch  as  he,  Jean  Oullier, 
had  him  on  his  shoulders. 

Suddenly  Trigaud,  who  marched  at  their  head  guided 
by  Courte-Joie,  and  utterly  indifferent  to  where  he  went, 
stepped  back  abruptly.  He  had  set  his  feet  in  water, 
which  the  smoke  had  prevented  him  from  seeing,  and  he 
was  now  knee-deep  in  it.     Aubin  uttered  a  cry  of  joy. 

"We  've  done  it  !  "  he  said;  "the  smoke  has  led  us  as 
straight  as  the  best-broken  hound  ever  led  a  sportsman." 

"  Ah  !  "  exclaimed  Jean  Oullier. 

"You  understand  now,  don't  you,  my  gars?"  said 
Courte-Joie,  in  a  tone  of  triumph. 

"  Yes  ;  but  how  shall  we  reach  the  island  ?  " 

"  How  ?     Why,  there  's  Trigaud." 

"True;  but  when  the  soldiers  miss  us  won't  they  suspect 
the  trick  ?  " 

"Of  course,  if  they  do  miss  us;  but  I  intend  they 
sha'n't." 

"Goon." 


THE   MOOK   OF   BOUAlMi  189 

"They  don't  know  how  many  we  are.  We  will  put 
Mademoiselle  Bertha  and  the  wounded  man  in  safety,  and 
then,  as  if  we  had  made  a  mistake  and  found  our  way 
blocked  by  the  pond,  you  and  1  and  Trigaud  will  land,  and 
show  them  by  a  few  shots  where  we  are.  After  that, 
being  free  of  incumbrance,  we  can  easily  get  into  the 
woods  of  Gineston,  and  return  to  the  island  after  dark." 

"  But  these  poor  children  will  be  left  without  food  !  " 

"Pooh!"  said  Courte- Joie,  "it  won't  kill  them  to  go 
twenty-four  hours  without  eating." 

"So  be  it."  Then,  with  a  sort  of  sad  contempt  for  his 
want  of  intelligence,  "Last  night,"  he  continued,  "must 
have  addled  my  brain,  or  I  should  have  thought  of  all  this 
myself." 

"Don't  expose  yourselves  uselessly,"  said  Bertha,  half 
joyous  at  the  thought  of  the  tête-à-tête  which  these  strange 
circumstances  were  giving  her  with  the  man  she  loved. 

"  Don't  trouble  about  that,  "  replied  Jean  Oullier. 

Trigaud  took  Michel  in  his  arms,  without  unhorsing 
Courte-Joie  (which  would  have  made  him  lose  time)  and 
entered  the  pond.  He  walked  thus  till  the  water  was  up 
to  his  middle;  then  he  hoisted  Michel  to  his  head  in  case 
the  water  mounted  higher.  It  stopped,  however,  at  the 
level  of  the  giant's  breast.  He  crossed  the  pond  to  a  sort 
of  island  about  twelve  feet  square,  which  seemed  in  the 
midst  of  that  stagnant  water  to  be  nothing  more  than  a 
vast  duck's-nest.     It  was  covered  with  a  forest  of  reeds. 

Trigaud  deposited  Michel  among  the  reeds  and  returned 
for  Bertha,  whom  he  carried  in  the  same  manner  and  put 
down,  as  he  might  a  bird,  beside  the  young  Baron  de  la 
Logerie. 

"Lie  down  flat  among  the  reeds  in  the  middle  of  the 
island  !  "  called  Jean  Oullier  from  the  shore.  "  Lift  the 
reeds  you  have  just  bent  down,  and  I  can  promise  that  no 
one  will  find  you  !  " 

"Very  good,"  replied  Bertha;  "and  now,  my  friends, 
think  only  of  yourselves." 


190  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XX. 


THE    FIRM    OF    AUBIN    COURTE-JOIE    AND    CO.   DOES    HONOR  TO 
ITS    PARTNERSHIP. 

It  was  high  time  for  the  three  Chouans  to  finish  what  they 
had  to  do  on  the  borders  of  the  pond.  The  flames  were 
rolling  onward  with  terrifying  rapidity;  they  ran  along  the 
flowery  tops  of  the  broom  and  heather  like  gold  and  purple 
birds  swept  forward  by  the  wind,  as  if  they  preferred  to 
play  among  the  twigs  and  branches  before  they  seized 
upon  the  stems.  Their  mutterings,  like  the  roar  of  ocean, 
increased  in  all  directions  round  the  fugitives,  and  the 
smoke  grew  denser  and  more  suffocating. 

But  the  steel  muscles  possessed  by  Jean  Oullier  and 
Trigaud  were  a  match  for  the  flames,  and  the  trio  were 
soon  safe  from  all  danger  of  fire.  They  turned  obliquely 
to  the  left,  and  soon  reached  a  dip  in  the  valley  which  was 
almost  free  of  the  smoke  which  so  far  had  been  their  main 
protection,  —  serving  to  hide  their  number,  the  direction  of 
their  flight,  and  the  manoeuvre  by  which  Michel  and  Bertha 
were  now  in  a  place  of  safety. 

"Let  us  crawl;  we  must  crawl  now,  Trigaud,"  cried 
Jean  Oullier.  "  The  soldiers  must  n't  see  us  till  we  know 
where  they  are  and  what  they  are  doing." 

The  giant  bent  down  as  though  he  were  going  on  all 
fours  ;  and  it  was  lucky  for  him  he  did  so,  for  no  sooner 
had  he  stooped  than  a  ball,  which  he  would  otherwise 
have  received  in  his  breast,  whizzed  harmlessly  through 
the  air. 

"The  devil  !  "  cried  Courte- Joie;  "you  did  n't  give  that 
advice  a  bit  too  soon,  gars  Oullier." 


THE   FIKM   OF   AUBIN   COURTE-JOIE    AND    CO.  191 

"  They  have  guessed  our  trick  and  have  surrounded  us  — 
on  this  side  at  least,"  said  Jean  Oullier. 

They  now  saw  a  file  of  soldiers  posted  at  a  hundred 
paces  from  each  other,  all  the  way  from  the  dolmen  to  a 
distance  of  a  mile  and  a  half,  evidently  waiting,  like 
huntsmen,  till  the  quarry  should  reappear. 

"  Shall  we  rush  upon  them  ?  " 

"  That 's  my  advice;  but  wait  till  I  have  made  a  gap." 

Putting  his  gun  to  his  shoulder  (but  without  leaving  his 
horizontal  position)  Jean  Oullier  fired  on  the  soldier  who 
was  now  reloading  his  gun.  The  man,  struck  in  the 
breast,  twirled  round  upon  himself  and  fell  head  foremost 
to  the  ground. 

"  That 's  one  !  "  said  Jean  Oullier. 

Then  aiming  at  the  next  soldier  as  calmly  as  he  would  at 
a  partridge,  he  fired.     The  second  man  fell  like  the  first. 

"  A  double-shot  !  "  exclaimed  Courte- Joie.  "  Bravo,  gars 
Oullier,  bravo  !  " 

"Forward  !  forward  !"  cried  Oullier,  springing  to  his 
feet  with  the  agility  of  a  panther.  "Forward!  and  spread 
a  little  to  give  less  chance  for  the  balls  they  '11  rain  upon 
us!" 

The  Vendéan  was  right.  The  three  comrades  had 
scarcely  advanced  ten  steps  before  six  or  eight  successive 
discharges  were  heard;  and  one  of  the  balls  splintered  the 
club  which  Trigaud  was  carrying  in  his  hand.  Happily 
for  the  fugitives,  the  soldiers  hurrying  on  all  sides  to  tho 
help  of  their  wounded  companions,  and  coming  up  out  of 
breath,  had  fired  unsteadily.  Nevertheless  they  closed  the 
way  and  it  is  probable  that  Jean  Oullier  and  his  friends 
would  not  have  had  time  to  escape  through  their  line  with- 
out a  hand-to-hand  fight. 

As  it  was,  just  as  Jean  Oullier,  who  held  the  left,  was 
about  to  spring  across  a  little  ravine,  a  shako  rose  on  the 
other  side,  and  he  saw  a  soldier  awaiting  him  with  fixed 
bayonet.  The  rapidity  of  his  rush  prevented  the  Vendéan 
from  reloading  his  gun,  but  he  calculated  that  as  his  adver- 


192  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

sary  contented  himself  with  his  bayonet  he  was  probably 
in  the  same  condition  as  himself.  Eisking  all,  he  drew 
his  knife,  put  it  between  his  teeth,  and  continued  his  way 
with  headlong  speed.  On  the  edge  of  the  ravine  he  stopped 
short,  and  putting  up  his  gun  took  aim  at  his  adversary. 
The  soldier,  thinking  the  Vendéan's  gun  was  loaded,  flung 
himself  flat  on  his  stomach  to  escape  the  shot.  An  instant 
after,  and  as  if  the  pause  he  made  had  not  diminished  the 
impulsion  of  his  spring,  Jean  was  across  the  ravine,  over 
the  body  of  the  soldier,  and  away  like  lightning  on  the 
other  side. 

Trigaud  was  equally  fortunate  ;  and  save  for  a  ball  which 
grazed  his  shoulder  and  added  more  rags  to  those  he  wore, 
he  and  his  partner  Courte-Joie  got  safely  across  the  line. 
The  two  fugitives  (Trigaud  and  Courte-Joie  count  as  one) 
now  turned  diagonally,  one  to  right,  the  other  to  left,  so 
as  to  meet  at  the  point  of  the  angle.  At  the  end  of  five 
minutes  they  were  within  speaking  distance. 

"  Are  you  all  right  ?  "  said  Jean  Chillier  to  Courte-Joie. 

"All  right!"  answered  the  cripple;  "and  in  twenty 
minutes,  if  we  don't  have  a  limb  lopped  off  by  those  ras- 
cally Blues,  we  '11  be  in  the  fields;  and  once  we  are  behind 
a  hedge  the  devil  himself  can't  touch  us.  That  was  a  bad 
idea  of  ours,  taking  to  the  moor,  gars  Oullier." 

"Pooh!  we'll  soon  be  away  from  it;  and  the  young 
folks  are  much  safer  where  they  are  than  if  we  had  put 
them  in  the  thickest  forest.     You  are  not  wounded  ?  " 

"  No  ;  and  you,  Trigaud  ?  I  thought  I  felt  a  sort  of 
shudder  on  your  hide." 

The  giant  showed  the  gash  the  ball  had  made  in  his 
club;  evidently,  this  misfortune,  which  destroyed  the  sym- 
metry of  the  work  at  which  he  had  fondly  labored  all  the 
morning,  troubled  him  far  more  than  the  damage  done  to 
his  clothing  or  to  his  deltoid,  which  was  slightly  injured 
by  the  passage  of  the  ball. 

"Oh,  be  joyful!"  cried  Courte-Joie;  "here  are  the 
fields." 


THE   FIRM    OF   AUBIN   COURTE-JOIE    AND    CO.  193 

In  truth,  not  a  thousand  steps  away  from  the  fugitives, 
at  the  bottom  of  a  slope  which  was  so  gentle  as  to  be 
almost  imperceptible,  fields  of  wheat  were  visible,  their 
ears  already  yellowing  and  swaying  to  the  breeze  in  their 
dull-green  sheaths. 

"  Suppose  we  stop  to  breathe  a  minute,"  said  Courte-Joie, 
who  seemed  to  feel  the  fatigue  that  Trigaud  felt. 

"Yes,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  "and  give  me  time  to  reload. 
Meautime,  do  you  look  about." 

Jean  Oullier  reloaded  his  gun,  and  Courte-Joie  turned 
his  eyes  in  a  circle  around  him. 

"  Oh,  ten  million  thunders  !  "  exclaimed  the  cripple  sud- 
denly, just  as  the  Vendéan  was  ramming  in  his  second  ball. 

"  What  now  ?  "  said  Jean  Oullier,  turning  round. 

"Forward  !  all  the  devils  of  hell  !  forward  !  I  don't  see 
anything  yet,  but  I  hear  something  that  bodes  no  good." 

"Whew  !  they  are  doing  us  the  honor  of  cavalry,  gars 
Courte-Joie.  Quick,  quick,  lazy-bones  !  "  he  added, 
addressing  Trigaud. 

The  latter,  as  much  to  relieve  his  lungs  as  to  make 
answer  to  Jean  Oullier,  gave  vent  to  a  sort  of  bellow 
which  a  lusty  Poitevin  bull  might  have  envied  him,  and 
then  with  a  single  stride  he  jumped  an  enormous  stone 
which  lay  on  his  way;  as  he  did  so  a  cry  of  pain  burst 
from  Jean  Oullier. 

"What 's  the  matter  ?"  asked  Courte-Joie,  looking  back 
to  the  latter,  who  had  stopped  and  was  leaning  on  his  gun 
with  his  foot  raised. 

"Nothing,  nothing,"  replied  Oullier;  "don't  trouble 
about  me." 

He  tried  to  walk,  gave  another  cry,  and  sat  down. 

"Oh,"  said  Courte-Joie,  "  we  shall  not  go  on  without  you 
Tell  me,  what 's  the  matter  ?  " 

"Nothing,  I  say." 

"  Are  you  wounded  ?  " 

"  Oh,  for  that  bone-setter  of  Montbert  !  "  exclaimed  Jean 
Oullier. 

VOL.    II.  —  13 


194  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  What 's  that  ?  "  said  Courte-Joie,  who  did  not  catch 
his  meaning. 

"I've  either  broken  or  turned  my  ankle  by  stepping 
into  a  hole;  at  any  rate,  I  can't  take  another  step." 

"  Trigaud  will  take  you  on  one  shoulder  and  me  on  the 
other." 

"Impossible  !  you  could  never  reach  the  hedges." 

"But  if  we  leave  you  behind  they  '11  kill  you,  my  Jean." 

"Maybe  so,"  said  the  Vendéan,  "but  I  '11  kill  a  few  of 
them  before  I  die;  and  by  way  of  a  beginning,  look  at 
that  fellow." 

A  young  officer  of  chasseurs,  better  mounted  than  the 
/est,  appeared  at  the  top  of  a  rise  about  three  hundred 
paces  from  the  fugitives.  Jean  put  his  musket  to  his 
shoulder  and  tired.  The  young  man  threw  up  his  arms 
and  fell  from  his  saddle.     Jean  Oullier  reloaded  his  gun. 

"Can't  you  walk  at  all  ?"  asked  Courte-Joie. 

"I  might  limp  a  dozen  steps;  but  what's  the  good  of 
that  ?  " 

"Then  here  we  '11  stay,  Trigaud." 

"You  won't  do  such  a  foolish  thing,  I  hope  ?  "  cried  Jean 
Oullier. 

"Yes,  by  my  faith,  I  will.  Where  you  die  we  die,  old 
friend;  but,  as  you  say,  we'll  bring  down  a  few  of  them 
first." 

"No,  no,  Courte-Joie;  that  sha'n't  be  so.  You  must 
live  to  look  after  those  young  ones  we  left  over  there  — 
What  are  you  about,  Trigaud  ?  "  he  suddenly  asked,  look- 
ing at  the  giant,  who  had  gone  down  into  a  ravine  and  was 
lifting  a  block  of  granite. 

"Don't  scold  him!"  said  Courte-Joie;  "he  isn't  wasting 
time." 

"  Here,  here  !  "  cried  Trigaud,  showing  a  hollow  made  by 
the  flow  of  water  under  the  stone. 

"  Faith,  he  's  right.  I  declare  if  he  has  n't  the  mind 
of  a  monkey  this  day,  my  (jars  Trigaud  !  Here,  Jean 
Oullier,   here,   get  under!  get  under!" 


THE   FIRM   OF   AUBIN   COURTE-JOIE   AND   CO.  195 

Jean  Oullier  dragged  himself  to  the  stone  and  rolled  into 
the  excavation,  where  he  curled  himself  into  a  hall  with 
the  water  to  his  middle.  Trigaud  then  replaced  the  stone, 
leaving  just  enough  space  to  give  air  and  light  to  the  living 
heing  it  covered  like  a  tombstone. 

The  giant  had  just  concluded  this  work  when  the  horse- 
men appeared  at  the  top  of  the  slope;  and  after  convincing 
themselves  that  the  young  officer  was  really  dead,  dashed 
down  in  pursuit  of  the  Chouans  at  full  gallop. 

Nevertheless,  all  hope  was  not  lost.  Trigaud  and  Courte- 
Joie  were  scarcely  fifty  steps  from  a  hedge  beyond  which 
they  would  be  safe  from  horsemen;  and  as  for  the  foot- 
soldiers,  they  appeared  to  have  relinquished  their  pursuit. 

But  a  subaltern  officer  admirably  mounted  pressed  them 
so  hard  that  Courte-Joie  felt  the  hot  breath  of  the  animal 
on  his  legs.  The  rider,  determined  to  end  the  matter, 
rose  in  his  stirrups  and  aimed  such  a  blow  with  his  sabre 
at  the  cripple's  head  that  he  would  certainly  have  split  it 
in  two;  but  the  horse,  which  he  did  not  have  well  in 
hand,  swerved  to  the  left,  while  Trigaud  instinctively 
flung  himself  to  the  right.  The  weapon  therefore  missed 
its  mark  and  merely  made  a  flesh  wound  on  the  cripple's 
arm. 

"Face  about  !  "  cried  Courte-Joie  to  Trigaud,  as  though 
he  were  commanding  a  company.  The  latter  pivoted  round, 
absolutely  as  though  his  body  were  riveted  to  the  ground 
with  an  iron  screw. 

The  horse,  passing  beside  him,  struck  him  in  the  breast, 
but  did  not  shake  him.  At  the  same  instant  Courte-Joie, 
firing  one  barrel  of  his  little  gun,  knocked  over  the  subal- 
tern, who  was  dragged  to  some  distance  by  the  impetus  of 
his  horse. 

"One!"  counted  Trigaud,  in  whom  the  imminence  of 
danger  seemed  to  develop  a  loquacity  which  was  not 
habitual  with  him. 

During  the  moment  that  this  affair  lasted  the  other 
horsemen  were  rapidly  approaching;  a  few  horse's-lengths 


196  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

alone  separated  them  from  the  two  Vendéans,  who  could 
hear,  above  the  tramp  of  their  galloping  steeds,  the  sharp 
cocking  of  their  pistols  and  musketoons.  But  that  moment 
had  sufficed  Courte-Joie  to  judge  of  the  resources  offered 
him  by  the  place  in  which  he  found  himself. 

They  were  now  at  the  farther  end  of  the  moor  of 
Bouaimé,  a  few  steps  from  a  crossway  whence  several 
roads  diverged.  Like  all  such  open  spaces  in  Brittany 
and  La  Vendee,  this  crossway  had  its  crucifix;  and  the 
cross,  which  was  of  stone,  and  dilapidated  on  one  side, 
offered  a  temporary  refuge  which  might  soon  become  unten- 
able. To  right  were  the  first  hedges  of  the  fields;  but 
there  was  no  chance  whatever  of  reaching  them,  for  three 
or  four  horsemen,  forestalling  their  intention,  had  obliquely 
advanced  to  thwart  it.  Opposite  to  them  and  flowing  to 
their  left  was  the  river  Maine,  which  made  a  bend  at  this 
place;  but  Courte-Joie  knew  it  was  useless  to  even  think 
of  putting  the  river  between  himself  and  the  soldiers,  for 
the  opposite  bank  was  a  face  of  rock  rising  from  the  water; 
and  in  following  the  current  to  find  a  spot  to  land,  the  two 
Chouans  would  have  been  simply  a  target  for  the  enemy. 

It  was,  therefore,  the  refuge  of  the  cross  on  which 
Courte-Joie  decided,  and  in  that  direction  Trigaud,  under 
his  master's  orders,  proceeded.  But  just  as  he  reached  the 
column  of  stone  and  turned  it  to  put  its  bulk  between  the 
soldiers  and  themselves,  a  ball  struck  an  arm  of  the  cross, 
ricochetted,  and  wounded  Courte-Joie  in  the  cheek,  —  not, 
however,  preventing  the  cripple  from  replying  to  it  in 
turn. 

Unfortunately,  the  blood  which  poured  from  the  wound 
fell  on  Trigaud's  hands.  He  saw  that  blood,  gave  a  roar 
of  fury,  —  as  though  he  felt  nought  but  that  which  injured 
his  companion,  —  and  charged  madly  on  the  soldiers  like  a 
wild-boar  on  its  hunters. 

In  an  instant  Courte-Joie  and  Trigaud  were  surrounded; 
a  dozen  sabres  whirled  above  their  heads,  a  dozen  pistol 
muzzles  threatened  their  bodies,  and  one  gendarme  seized 


THE    FIRM    OF   AUBIN    COURTE-JOIE    AND    CO.  197 

Courte- Joie.  But  Trigaud's  club  descended;  it  fell  upon 
the  leg  of  the  gendarme  and  crushed  it;  the  hapless  rider 
uttered  a  terrible  cry  and  fell  from  his  horse,  which  fled 
across  the  moor. 

At  the  same  instant  a  dozen  shots  were  fired;  Trigaud 
had  a  ball  in  the  breast,  and  Courte- Joie's  right  arm, 
broken  in  two  places,  hung  helpless  at  his  side.  The  giant 
seemed  insensible  to  pain;  with  his  trunk  of  a  tree  he 
made  a  moulinet  which  broke  two  or  three  sabres  and 
warded  others. 

"To  the  cross!  to  the  cross  !"  cried  Courte- Joie.  "It 
is  well  to  die  there." 

"Yes,"  muttered  Trigaud;  hearing  his  master  speak  of 
•  dying  he  brought  down  his  club  convulsively  on  the  head 
of  a  horseman,  who  fell  like  a  log.  Then,  executing  the 
order  he  had  received,  he  walked  backward  to  the  cross  — 
to  cover  as  much  as  possible  the  body  of  his  friend  with 
his  own  body. 

"  A  thousand  thunders  !  "  shouted  a  corporal  ;  "  we  are 
wasting  time  and  lives  and  powder  on  those  beggars." 

So  saying,  he  spurred  his  horse  and  forced  it  with  one 
bound  upon  the  two  Vendéans.  The  horse's  head  struck 
Trigaud  full  in  the  chest,  and  the  shock  was  so  violent  that 
it  brought  the  giant  to  his  knees.  The  soldier  profited  by 
the  chance  to  strike  Courte- Joie  a  blow  which  entered  his 
skull. 

"  Throw  me  at  the  foot  of  the  cross  and  escape  if  you 
can!"  said  Courte-Joie,  in  a  failing  voice.  "It  is  all  over 
with  me."  Then  he  began  the  prayer:  "Receive  my  soul, 
0  God  !  " 

But  the  colossus  no  longer  obeyed  him;  maddened  with 
blood  and  fury  he  uttered  hoarse,  inarticulate  cries,  like 
those  of  a  lion  at  bay;  his  eyes,  usually  dull  and  lifeless, 
cast  out  flames;  his  lips  drew  up,  exposing  the  clenched 
and  savage  teeth  ready  to  render  eraunch  for  craunch  with 
a  tiger.  The  gallop  of  the  horse  had  carried  the  soldier 
who  wounded  Courte-Joie  to  some  distance.     Trigaud  could 


198  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

not  reach  him;  but  he  measured  the  space  with  his  eye, 
and  whirling  the  club  above  his  head,  he  flung  it  hissing 
through  the  air  as  if  from  a  catapult. 

The  rider  forced  his  horse  to  rear,  and  so  avoided  the 
blow;  but  the  horse  received  it  on  his  head.  The  creature 
beat  the  air  with  his  forefeet  as  he  fell  over  backward,  and 
rolled  with  his  rider  on  the  ground. 

Trigaud  uttered  a  cry  of  joy  more  terrible  and  horrible 
than  a  cry  of  pain;  the  rider's  leg  was  caught  beneath  the 
animal.  He  flung  himself  upon  him,  parried  with  his  arm, 
which  was  deeply  gashed,  a  sabre-cut;  seized  the  soldier 
by  the  leg;  dragged  him  from  the  body  of  the  horse;  and 
then,  twirling  him  in  the  air,  as  a  child  does  a  sling,  he 
dashed  out  his  brains  upon  an  arm  of  the  cross. 
j  The  byzantine  stone  shook  to  its  base,  and  remained  bent 
over  to  one  side,  and  covered  with  blood.  A  cry  of  horror 
and  of  vengeance  burst  from  the  troops,  but  this  specimen 
of  the  giant's  strength  deterred  the  soldiers  from  approach- 
ing him;  they  stopped  where  they  were,  to  reload  their 
guns. 

During  this  time  Courte-Joie  breathed  his  last,  saying, 
in  a  load  voice  :  — 

"Amen  !" 

Then  Trigaud,  feeling  his  beloved  master  dead,  and 
utterly  ignoring  the  preparations  the  chasseurs  were  mak- 
ing to  kill  him,  —  Trigaud  sat  down  at  the  foot  of  the 
cross,  unfastened  the  body  of  Courte-Joie  from  his  shoul- 
ders and  laid  it  on  his  knees,  as  a  mother  might  handle 
the  body  of  her  child;  he  gazed  on  the  livid  face,  wiping 
with  his  sleeve  the  blood  that  blurred  it,  while  a  torrent 
of  tears  —  the  first  that  being,  indifferent  to  all  the  mis- 
eries of  life,  had  ever  shed  —  flowed  thick  and  fast  from 
his  eyes,  mingling  with  the  blood  he  was  piously  and 
absorbedly  removing. 

A  violent  explosion,  two  new  wounds,  and  the  dull  thud 
produced  by  three  or  four  balls  striking  the  body  which 
Trigaud  was  holding  in  his  arms  and  pressing  to  his  breast, 


THE   FIKM   OF   AUBIN   COURTE-JOIE    AND   CO.  199 

roused  him  from  his  grief  and  his  insensibility,  lie  rose 
to  his  full  height;  and  this  movement,  which  made  the 
soldiers  think  he  meant  to  spring  upon  them,  caused  them 
to  gather  up  the  reins  of  their  horses,  while  a  visible  shud- 
der ran  through  their  ranks. 

Eut  Trigaud  never  looked  at  them  ;  he  thought  of  them 
no  longer;  he  was  seeking  a  means  of  not  being  parted 
from  his  friend  by  death;  was  he  searching  for  a  spot 
which  promised  him  a  union  throughout  eternity  ? 

He  walked  toward  the  river.  In  spite  of  his  wounds, 
in  spite  of  the  blood  which  flowed  down  his  body  from 
the  holes  of  several  pistol-balls  and  left  a  rivulet  of 
blood  behind  him,  Trigaud  walked  firm  and  erect.  He 
reached  the  river-bank  before  a  single  soldier  thought  of 
preventing  him;  there  he  stopped  at  a  point  overlooking  a 
black  pool  of  water,  the  stillness  of  which  proclaimed  its 
depth.  Clasping  the  body  of  the  cripple  still  tighter  to 
his  breast,  and  gathering  up  his  last  remaining  strength, 
he  sprang  forward  into  its  depths  without  uttering  a  word. 

The  water  dashed  noisily  above  the  mighty  mass  it  now 
engulfed,  boiling  and  foaming  long  over  the  place  where 
Trigaud  and  his  friend  had  disappeared;  then  it  subsided 
into  rings,  which  widened,  widened  ever  till  they  died  upon 
the  shore. 

The  soldiers  had  ridden  up.  They  thought  the  beggar 
had  thrown  himself  into  the  water  to  reach  the  other  bank, 
and  pistol  in  hand  they  held  themselves  ready  to  fire  the 
moment  he  came  to  the  surface  of  the  stream. 

But  Trigaud  never  reappeared;  his  soul  had  gone  to  join 
the  soul  of  the  only  being  he  had  loved  in  this  world,  and 
their  bodies  lay  softly  together  on  a  bed  of  reeds  in  a  pool 
of  the  river  Maine. 


2U0  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 


XXI. 

IN    WHICH    SUCCOR   COMES    FROM    AN    UNEXPECTED    QUARTER. 

During  the  week  which  had  just  elapsed  Maître  Courtin 
kept  prudently  quiet  and  out  of  sight  in  his  farmhouse  at 
La  Logerie.  Like  all  diplomatists,  Courtin  had  no  great 
fancy  for  war;  he  calculated,  very  justly,  that  the  period 
of  pistol-shots  and  sabre-cuts  must  soon  pass  by,  and  he 
wished  to  be  fresh  and  lively  for  the  succeeding  period, 
when  he  might  be  useful  to  the  cause  —  and  to  himself  — 
according  to  the  petty  means  which  Nature  allotted  to 
him. 

He  was  not  without  some  uneasiness,  the  cautious  farmer, 
as  to  the  consequences  which  might  result  to  him  from  the 
part  he  had  taken  in  the  arrest  of  Jean  Oullier  and  the 
death  of  Bonneville;  and  at  this  moment  when  hatred, 
rancor,  vengeance  of  all  kinds  had  put  the  country  under 
arms,  he  thought  it  wisest  not  to  foolishly  risk  his  person 
within  their  range.  He  was  even  afraid  of  meeting  his 
young  master,  Baron  Michel  (inoffensive  as  he  knew  him 
to  be),  ever  since  a  certain  night  when  be  had  cut  the 
girths  of  the  baron's  saddle. 

In  fact,  the  day  after  that  performance,  thinking  that 
the  best  way  to  escape  being  killed  was  to  seem  half  dearl, 
he  took  to  his  bed  and  gave  out,  by  his  servant-woman,  to 
his  neighbors  and  administrators  that  a  malignant  fever 
like  that  of  poor  old  Tinguy  had  brought  him  to  death's 
door. 

Madame  de  la  Logerie,  in  her  distress  at  Michel's  flight, 
had  sent  twice  for  her  farmer;  but  danger  paralyzed 
Courtin's   desire  to   please  her,  and   the  proud   baroness, 


SUCCOR  COMES  FROM  AN  UNEXPECTED  QUARTER      201 

goaded  by  anxiety,  was  forced  to  go  herself  to  the  peasant's 
house. 

She  had  heard  that  Michel  was  a  prisoner,  and  was 
about  to  start  for  Nantes  to  use  all  her  influence  with  the 
authorities  to  get  him  released,  and  all  lier  authority  as  a 
mother  to  take  him  far  away  from  this  disastrous  neigh- 
borhood. Under  no  circumstances  would  she  return  to 
La  Logerie,  where  further  sojourn  seemed  to  her  dangerous 
by  reason  of  the  conflict  about  to  take  place;  and  she  was 
anxious  to  see  Courtin  and  leave  him  in  charge  of  the 
château  and  her  interests. 

Courtin  promised  to  be  worthy  of  her  confidence,  but  in 
so  weak  and  dolorous  a  voice  that  the  baroness  left  the 
farmhouse  with  a  heart  full  of  pity  for  the  poor  devil, 
even  in  the  midst  of  her  own  personal  anxieties. 

After  this  came  the  fights  at  Chêne  and  La  Pénissière. 
On  the  days  of  their  occurrence  the  noise  of  the  musketry, 
as  it  reached  the  farmer's  ears,  caused  a  relapse  in  his  ill- 
ness. But  no  sooner  had  he  heard  of  the  result  of  those 
fights  than  he  rose  from  his  bed  entirely  cured.  The  next 
day  he  felt  so  vigorous  that,  in  spite  of  his  woman's 
remonstrance,  he  determined  to  go  to  Montaigu,  his  mar- 
ket-town, and  get  the  orders  of  the  sub-prefect  as  to  his 
future  course.  The  vulture  smelt  the  carnage,  and  wanted 
to  be  sure  of  his  little  share  of  the  spoil. 

At  Montaigu  Maître  Courtin  learned  that  his  trip  was 
useless;  the  department  had  just  been  placed  under  mili- 
tary authority.  The  sub-prefect  advised  the  mayor  of  La 
Logerie  to  go  to  Aigrefeuille  and  get  his  instructions  from 
the  general,  who  was  there  at  that  moment. 

Dermoncourt,  fully  occupied  with  the  movement  of  his 
columns,  and  having,  as  a  brave  and  loyal  soldier,  little 
liking  for  men  of  Courtin's  character,  received  the  latter's 
denunciations,  made  under  the  guise  of  necessary  informa- 
tion, with  an  abstracted  air,  and,  in  fact,  showed  a  coldness 
to  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie  which  greatly  chilled  that 
functionary's  hopes.     Nevertheless  the  general  accepted  a 


'202  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

proposal  which  Courtin  made  him,  to  put  a  garrison  in  the 
château  de  la  Logerie;  for  the  position  seemed  to  him  an 
excellent  one  from  which  to  hold  the  whole  region  in  hand, 
from  Machecoul  to  Saint  Colombin. 

Heaven  owed  the  farmer  some  compensation  for  the 
general's  want  of  sympathy,  and,  with  its  usual  justice, 
.  soon  bestowed  it. 

As  he  left  the  house  which  served  as  headquarters, 
Maître  Courtin  was  approached  by  a  man  whom  he  had  no 
recollection  of  ever  having  met,  but  who,  nevertheless, 
showed  him  the  utmost  civility  and  a  friendliness  that  was 
altogether  touching.  This  individual  was  a  man  about 
thirty  years  of  age,  dressed  in  black  clothes,  the  cut  of 
which  resembled  that  of  priestly  garments  worn  in  a  city. 
His  forehead  was  low,  his  nose  hooked  like  the  beak  of  a 
bird  of  prey.  His  lips  were  thin  ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  their 
thinness,  they  were  prominent,  owing  to  a  peculiar  forma- 
tion of  the  jaw;  his  pointed  chin  protruded  at  an  angle 
which  was  more  than  sharp;  his  hair,  of  a  leaden  black, 
was  plastered  along  his  temples,  and  his  gray  eyes,  often 
dropped,  seemed  to  see  through  his  winking  eyelids.  It 
was  the  countenance  of  a  Jesuit  grafted  on  the  face  of  a 
Jew. 

A  few  words  said  by  this  unknown  man  to  Courtin 
appeared  to  remove  the  distrust  with  which  the  latter  was 
inclined  to  receive  advances  which  seemed  to  him  at  first 
suspicious.  He  even  accepted  with  a  good  grace  an  invita- 
tion to  dinner  at  the  hôtel  Saint-Pierre,  which  the  stranger 
gave  him;  and  after  two  hours  passed  tête-à-tête  in  a 
private  room,  where  the  individual  we  have  described 
ordered  the  table  to  be  laid,  such  mutual  sympathy  had 
been  developed  that  they  treated  each  other,  Courtin  and  he, 
as  old  friends;  exchanging,  when  they  parted,  many  shak- 
ings of  the  hand,  while  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie,  as  he 
struck  his  spurs  into  his  pony's  flanks,  promised  his  new 
acquaintance  that  he  should  not  be  long  without  hearing 
from  him. 


SUCCOR  COMES  FROM  AN  UNEXPECTED  QUARTER      203 

Toward  nine  o'clock  that  evening  Maître  Courtin  was 
jogging  along,  with  the  tail  of  his  beast  toward  Aigrefeuille 
and  its  nose  toward  La  Logerie;  he  seemed  quite  lively 
and  joyous,  and  was  flirting  his  whip  by  its  leather  handle 
right  and  left  on  the  flanks  of  his  little  steed,  with  a  jollity 
and  ease  that  were  not  characteristic  of  him. 

Maître  Courtin's  brain  was  evidently  larded  with  couleur- 
de-rose  ideas.  He  was  thinking  how  on  the  morrow  he 
should  have,  at  a  stone's  throw  from  his  farm,  a  detachment 
of  fifty  soldiers,  whose  presence  would  relieve  him  of 
anxiety,  not  only  about  the  consequences  of  what  he  had 
done,  but  also  about  those  of  certain  things  that  he  wanted 
to  do;  he  was  thinking,  too,  that  in  his  capacity  as  mayor 
he  could  use  those  fifty  bayonets  according  to  the  needs  of 
his  private  animosities.  This  idea  gratified  his  self-love 
and  his  hatred  together. 

But,  seductive  as  this  idea  of  a  Pretorian  guard  which 
could,  if  cleverly  managed,  be  turned  into  his  private 
guard,  might  be,  it  was  surely  not  sufficient  to  give  Maître 
Courtin  —  a  practical  man  if  ever  there  was  one  —  his 
present  exuberant  satisfaction. 

The  mysterious  unknown  had  no  doubt  dazzled  his  eyes 
with  something  more  than  the  glitter  of  an  ephemeral 
glory,  —  in  fact,  it  was  neither  more  nor  less  than  piles  of 
gold  and  silver  which  Maître  Courtin  was  beholding  in  his 
mind's  eye  through  the  mists  of  the  future,  and  toward 
which  he  was  mechanically  stretching  out  his  hand  with  a 
smile  of  covetousness. 

Under  the  control  of  these  agreeable  hallucinations,  and 
somewhat  hazy  from  the  fumes  of  wine  which  li is  new 
friend  had  poured  for  him  generously,  Maître  Courtin  let 
himself  drop  into  a  state  of  gentle  somnolence;  his  body 
swayed  to  right  and  left,  according  to  the  caprices  of  his 
ambling  pony,  until  at  last,  the  quadruped  having  stumbled 
over  a  stone,  Maître  Courtin  pitched  forward  and  remained 
doubled  over  on  the  pommel  of  his  saddle. 

The  position  was  uncomfortable,  but  Maître  Courtin  was 


204  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

careful  not  to  change  it;  he  was  then  in  the  midst  of  so 
delightful  a  dream  that,  for  all  the  world,  he  would  not 
lose  it  by  awaking.  He  thought  he  was  meeting  his  young 
master,  who  said  to  him,  waving  his  hand  over  the  domain 
of  La  Logerie,  "All  this  is  thine  !  " 

The  gift  was  proving  more  considerable  than  Courtin  at 
first  thought  it;  untold  riches  were  developing.  The  trees 
in  the  orchard  were  laden  down  with  gold  and  silver  fruit; 
all  the  poles  in  the  neighborhood  would  not  suffice  to 
hinder  the  branches  from  breaking  under  the  weight  of 
such  wealth.  The  wild-roses  and  hawthorns  were  bear- 
ing, instead  of  their  usual  haws,  jewels  of  all  colors, 
which  sparkled  in  the  sun  like  so  many  carbuncles;  and 
there  was  such  a  quantity  of  them  that,  although  he  knew 
they  were  precious  stones,  Courtin  saw,  with  an  eye  of 
equanimity,  a  small  marauder  filling  his  pockets  with 
them. 

The  farmer  entered  his  own  stable.  In  that  stable  he 
beheld  a  file  of  fat  and  well-fed  cows  extending  out  of 
sight  so  far,  so  far,  that  the  one  which  was  nearest  the 
'door  seemed  to  be  of  the  size  of  an  elephant,  while  the-  one 
in  the  farthest  distance  was  no  bigger  than  a  worm.  Under 
each  of  these  cows  was  a  3^oung  girl  milking.  The  first 
two  had  the  features  of  the  "she-wolves,"  the  daughters 
of  the  Marquis  de  Souday.  From  the  teats  of  the  cows 
they  were  milking  ran  a  white  and  yellow  liquid,  brilliant 
as  two  metals  in  fusion.  As  it  fell  into  the  copper  pails 
of  the  two  girls  it  produced  that  delightful  sound  which  is 
music  to  the  ear,  — the  sound  of  gold  and  silver  coins  piling 
one  above  the  other. 

As  he  looked  into  the  pails  the  happy  farmer  saw  that 
they  were  more  than  half  full  of  rare  and  precious  coins  of 
various  effigies.  He  stretched  out  his  eager,  grasping, 
quivering  hands  to  seize  these  treasures,  and  as  he  did  so 
a  violent  shock  accompanied  by  a  cry  of  agony  put  to  flight 
his  soft  illusions. 

Courtin   opened   his   eyes   and   saw    in   the  darknes?  a 


SUCCOR  COMES  FROM  AN  UNEXPECTED  QUARTER.   205 

peasant-woman  with  torn  clothes  and  dishevelled  hair 
stretching  out  her  hands  to  him. 

"What  do  you  want?"  cried  Maître  Courtin,  assuming 
a  gruff  voice  and  raising  his  stick  in  a  threatening 
manner. 

"  Your  help,  my  good  man  ;  I  implore  it  in  God's  name  !  " 

Finding  that  pity  alone  was  asked  for,  and  certain  now 
that  he  had  only  a  woman  to  deal  with,  Maître  Courtin, 
who  at  first  had  looked  about  him  in  a  terrified  manner, 
was  completely  reassured. 

"You  are  committing  a  misdemeanor,  my  dear,"  he  said. 
"  You  have  no  right  to  stop  persons  on  the  high-road  and 
ask  for  alms  !  " 

"Alms!  who  said  anything  about  alms?"  returned  the 
woman,  in  a  refined  and  haughty  tone  of  voice  which 
arrested  Courtin's  attention.  "I  want  you  to  help  in 
rescuing  an  unfortunate  man  who  is  dying  of  fatigue  and 
exposure  !  I  want  you  to  lend  me  your  horse  to  take  him 
to  some  farmhouse  in  the  neighborhood." 

"Who  is  it  I  am  to  help  ?  " 

"  You  seem  by  your  dress  to  belong  to  the  country  peo- 
ple. I  shall  therefore  not  hesitate  to  tell  you  the  truth, 
for  I  am  sure,  whatever  your  political  opinions  may  be,  you 
will  not  betray  us,  —  he  is  a  royalist  officer." 

The  voice  of  the  unknown  woman  excited  Courtin's 
curiosity  to  the  utmost.  He  leaned  from  his  saddle  striv- 
ing to  see  in  the  darkness  the  face  of  her  to  whom  the 
voice  belonged;  but  he  did  not  succeed  in  doing  so. 

"  Who  are  you,  yourself  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  What  is  that  to  you  ?  " 

"Do  you  expect  me  to  lend  my  horse  to  persons  I  don't 
know  ?  " 

"I  have  made  a  mistake;  your  answer  proves  that  I  was 
wrong  to  treat  you  as  a  friend  or  a  generous  enemy.  I 
had  better  have  employed  another  means.  Give  me  your 
horse  at  once  !  " 

"Indeed!" 


206  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"You  have  two  minutes  for  decision." 

"  And  if  I  refuse  ?  " 

"I  will  blow  your  brains  out!  "  said  the  woman,  point- 
ing a  pistol  at  Courtin  and  clicking  the  trigger  to  let  him 
know  the  execution  of  the  threat  would  follow  promptly. 

"Ah,  good!  I  recognize  you  now,"  said  Courtin.  "You 
are  Mademoiselle  de  Souday." 

Then,  without  allowing  his  questioner  time  to  say  more, 
the  mayor  of  La  Loger ie  got  off  his  pony. 

"  Very  good  !  "  said  Bertha,  for  it  was  she.  "  Now  tell 
me  your  name,  and  to-morrow  the  horse  shall  be  sent  home 
to  you." 

"No  need,  for  I  '11  go  with  you  and  help  you." 

"  You  !  why  this  sudden  change  ?  " 

"Because  I  take  it  the  person  you  want  me  to  help  is  the 
owner  of  my  farm." 

"  His  name  ?  " 

"Monsieur  Michel  de  la  Logerie." 

"Ah  !  you  are  one  of  his  tenants.  Then  we  can  go  to 
your  farmhouse  for  concealment." 

"But,"  stammered  Courtin,  who  was  far  from  comforta- 
ble at  the  thought  of  meeting  the  young  baron,  especially 
when  he  reflected  that  if  he  took  him  with  Bertha  under 
his  roof  Jean  Oullier  would  be  certain  to  come  there  after 
them,  "you  see  I  am  the  mayor,  and  —  " 

"  You  are  afraid  of  compromising  yourself  in  serving 
your  master  !  "  exclaimed  Bertha,  in  a  tone  of  the  deepest 
contempt. 

"Oh,  no,  not  that!  I'd  give  my  blood  for  the  young 
man;  but  we  are  to  have  a  garrison  of  soldiers  in  the 
château  de  la  Logerie." 

"  So  much  the  better  ;  they  will  never  suspect  that  Ven- 
déans,  insurgents,  would  take  refuge  so  near  them." 

"But  I  think,  in  the  interest  of  Monsieur  le  baron,  that 
Jean  Oullier  could  find  you  a  safer  retreat  than  my  house, 
where  the  soldiers  are  likely  to  be,  morning,  noon,  and 
nisrht." 


SUCCOR  COMES  FROM  AN  UNEXPECTED  OUARTER.      207 

"Alas  !  poor  Jean  Oullier  is  not  likely  to  help  any  of 
his  friends  in  future." 

"How  so?" 

"  We  heard  this  morning  some  brisk  firing  in  the  direction 
of  the  moor;  we  did  not  stir  from  where  we  were,  as  he 
told  us  to  wait  till  he  returned.  But  we  waited,  and 
waited,  in  vain  !  Jean  Oullier  is  either  dead  or  a  prisoner, 
for  he  is  not  one  of  those  who  desert  their  friends." 

If  it  had  been  daylight  Courtin  could  not  have  concealed 
the  joy  this  news,  which  relieved  him  of  his  worst  anxie- 
ties, caused  him.  But,  though  he  was  not  master  of  his 
countenance,  he  was  of  his  words  ;  and  he  answered  Bertha, 
who  had  spoken  in  an  agitated  voice  full  of  feeling,  with 
a  mournful  ejaculation  which  rather  reconciled  her  to  him. 

"Let  us  walk  faster,"  said  Bertha. 

"  I  'in  willing.     What  a  smell  of  burning  there  is  here  !  " 

"Yes,  they  set  fire  to  the  heath." 

"  Ah  !  How  came  Monsieur  le  baron  to  escape  the  fire  ? 
He  is  in  the  direction  of  it." 

"Jean  Oullier  put  us  among  the  reeds  in  the  Fréneuse 
pond." 

"Ah  !  that 's  why  when  I  touched  you  just  now  I  felt 
you  were  all  wet  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  as  Jean  Oullier  did  not  return  I  crossed  the  pond 
to  seek  for  help.  Finding  no  one,  I  took  Baron  Michel 
on  my  shoulders  and  brought  him  ashore.  I  hoped  to 
carry  him  to  the  nearest  house,  but  I  have  not  the  strength. 
I  have  been  obliged  to  leave  him  among  the  bushes  and 
come  to  the  high-road  myself.  We  have  had  nothing  to 
eat  for  twenty -four  hours." 

"  Ha  !  you  're  a  stalwart  girl  !  "  cried  Courtin,  who,  in 
the  uncertainty  he  felt  as  to  how  his  young  master  might 
receive  him,  was  not  sorry  to  conciliate  Mademoiselle 
Bertha's  good-will.  "You  are  just  the  helpmate  Monsieur 
le  baron  needs  in  these  stirring  times." 

"  It  is  my  duty  to  give  my  life  for  him,  "  said  Bertha. 

"Yes,"  said  Courtin,  emphatically;  "and  that  duty  no 


208  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

one,  I  swear  to  God,  understands  as  you  do.  But  be  calm 
and  don't  walk  so  fast  !  " 

"  But  he  suffers  !  he  may  be  calling  for  me  —  if  he  comes 
out  of  his  swoon." 

"Did  he  swoon  ?  "  cried  Courtin,  eagerly,  seeing  in 
that  small  detail  the  chance  of  escaping  an  immediate 
explanation. 

"Yes,  poor  fellow  !  he  is  badly  wounded,  too." 

"  Good  God  !  " 

"  Just  think  !  for  twenty-four  hours,  in  his  state,  he  has 
had  no  proper  care  !  for  my  help  has  been  powerless,  I  may 
say." 

" Good  heavens  !  " 

"  And  think,  too  !  he  has  been  all  day  in  the  burning 
sun  in  the  middle  of  the  reeds;  and  to-night,  in  spite  of 
my  precautions,  the  fog  has  wet  him  through  and  through, 
and  he  has  had  a  chill. 

"  Good  Lord  !  " 

"Ah!  if  evil  happens  to  him  I  '11  expiate  my  fault  in 
penance  all  my  life  for  having  urged  him  into  dangers  for 
which  he  was  unfit  !  "  cried  Bertha,  whose  political  senti- 
ments vanished  before  the  loving  anguish  Michel's  suffer- 
ings caused  her. 

As  for  Courtin,  Bertha's  assurance  that  Michel  was  not 
in  a  state  to  talk  to  him  seemed  to  double  the  length  of  his 
legs.  The  girl  no  longer  needed  to  hasten  him  on;  he 
walked  at  his  top  speed,  with  a  vigor  he  seldom  showed, 
pulling  the  pony  after  him  by  the  bridle,  the  beast  being 
recalcitrant  over  the  rough  and  heated  road. 

Believed  for  ever  and  aye  of  Jean  Chillier,  Courtin 
believed  it  would  be  easy  to  excuse  himself  to  his  young 
inaster,  —  in  fact,  that  the  matter  would  settle  itself. 

They  soon  reached  the  spot  where  the  girl  had  left 
Michel.  He,  with  his  back  against  a  stone,  his  head 
dropped  on  his  breast,  Avas,  if  not  actually  unconscious,  in 
such  a  state  of  utter  prostration  that  he  had  only  a  dim 
and  confused  sense  of  what  was  passing  about  him.  He 
paid  no  heed  to  Courtin;  and  when  the  latter,  with  Bertha's 


SUCCOR  COMES  FROM  AN  UNEXPECTED  QUARTER.   209 

help,  hoisted  him  on  the  poi^,  he  pressed  Courtin's  hand, 
as  he  did  that  of  Bertha,  without  knowing  what  he  was 
about. 

Courtin  and  Bertha  walked  on  either  side  of  the  pony  to 
support  Michel,  who,  without  their  help,  would  have 
fallen  to  left  or  right. 

They  reached  the  farmhouse.  Courtin  woke  up  his 
servant-woman,  on  whom  he  knew  he  could  rely,  took  his 
own  mattress  (the  only  one  the  house  afforded)  into  a  sort 
of  lean-to  above  his  bedroom,  where  he  installed  his  young 
master  with  such  zeal,  self-devotion,  and  eager  protesta- 
tions that  Bertha  ended  by  regretting  the  opinion  she  had 
formed  of  him  on  the  high-road. 

When  Michel's  wound  was  dressed,  and  he  was  safely 
in  the  bed  improvised  for  him,  Bertha  went  to  the  ser- 
vant's room  to  seek  her  rest. 

Left  alone,  Maître  Courtin  rubbed  his  hands;  he  had  done 
a  good  night's  work.  Violent  behavior  had  not  answered 
hitherto  ;  gentleness,  he  was  sure,  was  more  likely  to  suc- 
ceed. He  had  done  better  than  enter  the  enemy's  camp  — 
he  had  brought  the  enemy's  camp  into  his  own  house,  which 
gave  him  every  likelihood  of  detecting  the  secrets  of  the 
Whites,  especially  those  concerning  Petit-Pierre. 

He  went  over  in  his  brain  all  the  injunctions  given  to 
him  by  the  mysterious  man  at  Aigrefeuille;  the  most 
important  of  which  was  to  send  him  immediate  informa- 
tion if  he  contrived  to  discover  the  retreat  of  the  heroine 
of  La  Vendée,  and  not  to  communicate  any  facts  to  the 
generals,  —  men  who  cared  nothing  for  the  art  of  diplo- 
macy, and  were  altogether  below  the  level  of  great  political 
machinations. 

Courtin  now  thought  it  possible,  through  Michel  and 
Bertha,  to  discover  Madame's  retreat;  he  began  to  believe 
that  dreams  were  not  always  lies,  and  that,  thanks  to  the 
two  young  people,  the  wells  of  gold  and  silver  and  precious 
stones,  the  streams  of  metallic  milk,  would  become  to  him 
a  reality. 

VOL.   II.  — 14 


210  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XXII. 


ON    THE    HIGHWAY. 


During  all  this  time  Mary  had  no  news  of  Bertha.  Since 
the  evening  on  which  the  latter  left  the  Jacquet  mill, 
announcing  her  resolve  to  search  for  Michel,  Mary  knew 
nothing  of  Bertha's  movements.  Her  mind  was  lost  in 
conjecture.  Had  Michel  spoken?  Had  Bertha,  reduced  to 
despair,  done  some  fatal  deed?  Was  he  wounded?  Was  he 
killed?  Had  Bertha  herself  been  shot  in  one  of  her  adven- 
turous undertakings?  Such  were  the  gloomy  alternatives 
Mary  feared  for  the  two  objects  of  her  affections;  both  left 
her  a  prey  to  the  keenest  anxiety,  the  sharpest  anguish. 

In  vain  she  told  herself  that  the  wandering  life  she  now 
led  with  Petit-Pierre,  forced  each  evening  to  leave  the 
shelter  of  the  night  before,  made  it  very  difficult  for 
Bertha  to  recover  their  traces.  Making  all  such  allow- 
ances it  seemed  to  Mary  that,  unless  some  misfortune  had 
happened  to  her,  Bertha  would  surely  have  sent  some 
news  of  her  whereabouts  through  the  channels  of  communi- 
cation which  the  royalists  possessed  among  the  peasantry. 
Mary's  courage  was  already  weakened  by  the  many  shocks 
she  had  just  endured;  and  she  herself,  unsupported,  iso- 
lated, deprived  of  her  lover's  presence,  which  had  secretly 
sustained  her  in  the  hour  of  struggle,  now  gave  way  to 
gloomy  distress,  and  broke  down  utterly  under  her  trouble. 
She  spent  her  days,  which  she  ought  to  have  employed  in 
resting  after  the  fatigues  of  the  night,  in  watching  for 
Bertha  or  for  some  messenger  who  never  came;  for  hours 
at  a  time  she  sat  silently  absorbed  in  her  grief,  speaking 
only  when  spoken  to. 


ON   THE    HIGHWAY.  211 

Mary  certainly  loved  her  sister  ;  the  immense  sacrifice 
to  which  she  had  resigned  herself  for  Bertha's  sake  abun- 
dantly proved  it  —  and  yet  she  blushed,  owning  to  herself, 
honestly,  that  it  was  not  Bertha's  fate  that  chiefly  filled 
her  mind.  However  warm,  however  sincere  was  the  affec- 
tion Mary  felt  for  her  sister,  another  and  more  imperious 
emotion  had  glided  into  her  soul,  and  fed  on  the  pain  it 
brought  there.  In  spite  of  all  the  poor  girl's  efforts,  the 
sacrifice  of  which  we  speak  had  never  detached  her  from 
him  who  was  the  occasion  of  it.  Now  that  Michel  was 
separated  from  her,  she  fancied  she  could  indulge  with- 
out danger  the  thoughts  she  had  struggled  to  put  away 
from  her;  and  little  by  little  Michel's  image  had  so 
gained  possession  of  her  heart  that  it  no  longer  left  it, 
even  for  a  moment. 

In  the  midst  of  the  sufferings  of  her  life,  the  pain  these 
remembrances  of  her  lover  gave  her  seemed  comforting; 
she  flung  herself  into  it  with  a  sort  of  passion.  Day  by 
day  he  had  an  ever-increasing  share  in  the  tears  and 
anxiety  caused  by  the  strange  and  long-protracted  absence 
of  her  sister.  After  yielding,  without  reserve,  to  her 
despair,  after  exhausting  every  gloomy  supposition,  after 
evoking  all  the  cruel  alternatives  of  the  uncertainty  in 
which  each  passing  hour  left  her,  after  anxiously  counting 
all  the  minutes  of  those  hours,  little  by  little  Mary  fell 
into  regret,  —  regret  intermingled  with  self-reproach. 

She  went  over  in  her  memory  the  smallest  incidents  of 
her  relation  and  that  of  her  sister  with  Michel.  She 
asked  herself  whether  she  were  not  doing  wrong  in  break- 
ing the  heart  of  the  poor  lad  while  she  broke  her  own; 
whether  she  had  the  right  to  force  the  disposal  of  his  love; 
whether  she  were  not  responsible  for  the  misery  into  which 
she  was  plunging  Michel  by  compelling  him  to  be  a  sharer 
in  the  immense  sacrifice  she  was  offering  to  her  sister. 
Her  thoughts  returned,  with  irresistible  inclination,  to  the 
night  spent  on  the  islet  of  Jonchère.  She  saw  once  more 
those  reedy  barriers;    she  fancied  she  heard  that  softly 


212  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

harmonious  voice,  which  said:  "I  love  thee  !  "  She  closed 
her  eyes,  and  again  she  felt  the  young  man's  breath  as  it 
touched  her  hair,  and  his  lips  laying  on  her  lips  the  first,  the 
only,  but  ah!  the  ineffable  kiss  she  had  received  from  him. 

Then  the  renunciation  which  her  virtue,  her  tenderness 
for  her  sister  urged  upon  her  seemed  greater  than  her 
strength  could  bear.  She  blamed  herself  for  rashly 
attempting  a  superhuman  task,  and  Love  regained  so 
vigorously  a  heart  all  love,  that  Mary,  —  ordinarily  pious, 
submissive,  accustomed  to  seek,  in  view  of  a  future  life, 
the  path  of  patient  courage,  —  Mary  had  no  longer  the 
strength  to  look  to  heaven  only;  she  was  crushed.  In  the 
anguish  of  her  passion  she  gave  herself  up  to  impious 
despair,  asking  God  if  this  fleeting  memory  of  the  touch 
of  those  lips  was  all  she  was  to  know  of  the  happiness  of 
being  loved;  and  whether  life  were  worth  the  pain  of  living 
thus  disinherited  of  joy. 

The  Marquis  de  Souday  at  last  perceived  the  great 
alteration  produced  on  Mary's  face  by  these  grievous 
emotions;  but  he  naturally  attributed  it  to  the  great 
bodily  fatigue  the  young  girl  was  now  enduring.  He  was 
himself  much  depressed  in  seeing  all  his  fine  dreams  van- 
ishing, and  all  the  predictions  made  to  him  by  the  general 
realized.  He  saw  with  dread  a  return  of  his  exiled  days 
without  even  having  seen,  as  it  were,  the  dawn  of  a  strug- 
gle. Still,  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  force  his  courage  and 
resolution  to  the  level  of  the  misfortune  which  over- 
whelmed him,  and  that  duty  the  marquis  would  have  died 
rather  than  not  fulfil;  for  was  it  not  a  soldier's  duty  ? 
Little  as  he  cared  for  social  duties  and  proprieties,  the 
more  he  stickled  for  those  which  concerned  his  military 
honor.  Therefore,  notwithstanding  his  inward  depression, 
he  showed  no  outward  sign  of  it,  and  even  found  in  the 
vicissitudes  of  their  adventurous  life  the  text  of  many  a 
joke  with  which  he  tried  to  distract  the  minds  of  his  com- 
panions from  the  anxiety  and  disappointment  consequent 
on  the  failure  of  the  insurrection. 


ON   THE   HIGHWAY.  213 

Mary  had  told  her  father  of  Bertha's  departure;  and  the 
worthy  old  gentleman  had  intelligently  guessed  that  the 
girl's  anxiety  about  the  conduct  and  fate  of  her  betrothed 
was  at  the  bottom  of  it.  As  eye-witnesses  had  already 
brought  him  word  that  Michel,  far  from  failing  in  his 
duty,  had  heroically  contributed  to,  the  defence  of  La 
Pénissière,  the  marquis,  —  who  supposed  that  Jean  Oullier, 
on  whose  care  and  prudence  he  implicitly  relied,  was  with 
his  daughter  and  future  son-in-law,  —  the  marquis  did  not 
think  it  necessary  to  be  more  uneasy  at  Bertha's  absence 
than  a  general  might  have  been  about  an  officer  dispatched 
on  an  expedition.  Nevertheless,  the  marquis  could  not 
explain  to  himself  why  Baron  Michel  had  preferred  to 
tight  so  well  under  Jean  Oullier's  orders  rather  than  under 
his  own,  — and  he  was  inclined  to  be  annoyed  at  the 
preference. 

Surrounded  by  Legitimist  leaders,  Petit-Pierre,  on  the 
very  evening  of  the  fight  at  Chêne,  left  the  Jacquet  mill, 
where  the  danger  of  a  surprise  was  imminent.  The  main- 
road,  which  was  not  far  distant,  was  covered  at  intervals 
by  bodies  of  soldiers  escorting  prisoners.  Petit-Pierre 
and  her  body-guard  started,  therefore,  as  soon  as  it  was 
dark. 

Wishing  to  follow  the  highway  as  much  as  possible,  the 
little  troop  encountered  a  detachment  of  the  government 
troops,  and  was  forced  to  crouch  in  a  wayside  ditch,  which 
was  filled  with  brambles,  for  over  an  hour,  while  the 
detachment  filed  by.  The  whole  region  was  so  patrolled 
by  these  movable  columns  that  it  was  only  by  following 
the  most  impassable  wood-paths  that  the  fugitives  could 
be  sure  of  escaping  their  vigilance. 

Petit-Pierre's  uneasiness  was  extreme;  her  physical 
appearance  betrayed  her  mental  sufferings,  but  her  words, 
her  behavior,  never  !  In  the  midst  of  this  hazardous  life, 
so  disturbed  and  often  so  gloomy,  the  same  bright  gayety 
sparkled  from  her,  and  held  its  own  with  that  the  marquis 
was  assuming.     Pursued  as  they  were,  the  fugitives  never 


214  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

had  a  full  night's  rest;  and  no  sooner  had  the  daylight 
dawned  than  danger  and  fatigue  awoke  when  they  did. 
These  terrible  night  marches  were  sometimes  dangerous, 
and  always  horribly  fatiguing  to  Petit-Pierre.  Sometimes 
she  went  on  horseback,  oftener  on  foot, —  through  fields 
divided  by  hedges  and  embankments,  which  could  only  be 
crossed  after  darkness  had  fallen;  through  vineyards, 
which,  in  that  region,  trail  their  vines  on  the  ground, 
where  they  catch  the  feet  and  threaten  a  fall  at  every 
moment;  through  cow-paths  trampled  into  mud  by  the 
constant  passage  of  the  cattle,  —  mud  which  came  to  the 
knees  of  foot-passengers  and  horses. 

Petit-Pierre's  companions  were  now  very  anxious  as  to 
the  results  of  this  life  of  incessant  emotion  and  bodily 
fatigue  on  the  health  of  their  precious  charge.  They 
deliberated  on  the  best  means  of  putting  her,  once  for  all, 
in  safety.  Opinions  differed  ;  some  were  for  taking  her  to 
Paris,  where  she  might  be  lost  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  popu- 
lation ;  others  proposed  Nantes,  where  a  safe  concealment 
was  already  prepared;  a  third  party  counselled  immediate 
embarkation,  not  thinking  it  possible  to  ensure  her  safety 
so  long  as  she  stayed  in  Prance,  where  search  would  be 
only  the  more  active  because  the  actual  insurrection  was 
at  an  end. 

The  Marquis  de  Souday  was  of  the  latter  opinion;  to 
which  objection  was  made  that  a  vigorous  watch  was  kept 
along  the  coast,  and  that  it  would  be  absolutely  impossible 
to  embark  from  any  port,  however  insignificant,  without  a 
passport. 

Petit-Pierre  cut  short  the  discussion  by  declaring  that 
she  should  go  to  Nantes,  and  would  enter  it  on  the  morrow 
in  full  daylight,  dressed  as  a  peasant-woman.  As  the 
great  change  and  depression  visible  in  Mary's  appearance 
had  not,  as  may  well  be  supposed,  escaped  her,  and  as  she 
supposed,  like  the  marquis,  that  they  were  due  to  the  great 
fatigue  the  girl  was  enduring,  —  and  as  this  fatigue  would 
continue  if  she  stayed  with  her  father,  —  Petit-Pierre  pro- 


ON   THE    HIGHWAY.  215 

posed  to  the  marquis  to  take  his  daughter  with  her.     The 
marquis  accepted  the  offer  gratefully. 

Mary  did  not  readily  resign  herself.  Shut  up  in  a 
town  she  was  not  so  likely  to  obtain  news  of  Bertha  and 
Michel,  which  she  was  now  awaiting  from  hour  to  hour 
with  feverish  anxiety.  On  the  other  hand,  refusal  was 
Impossible,  and  she  therefore  yielded. 

On  the  morrow,  which  was  Saturday,  and  market-day, 
Petit-Pierre  and  Mary,  dressed  as  peasant-women,  started 
for  the  town  at  six  in  the  morning;  they  had  about  ten 
miles  to  go.  After  walking  for  half  an  hour  the  wooden 
shoes,  but,  above  all,  the  woollen  socks,  to  which  Petit- 
Pierre  was  not  accustomed,  hurt  her  feet.  She  tried  to 
keep  on;  but  knowing  that  if  she  blistered  her  feet  she 
would  be  unable  to  continue  the  journey,  she  sat  down  by 
the  wayside,  took  off  her  shoes  and  stockings,  stuffed  them 
into  her  capacious  pockets,  and  started  again  barefooted. 

Presently,  however,  she  noticed,  as  other  peasant-women 
passed  her,-  that  the  whiteness  and  delicacy  of  her  skin 
might  betray  her;  she  therefore  turned  off  the  road  a  little 
way,  took  some  dark,  peaty  earth,  and  rubbed  it  on  her  feet 
and  legs  till  they  were  stained  with  it,  and  then  resumed 
her  way. 

They  had  just  reached  the  top  of  the  hill  at  Sorinières 
when  they  saw  in  front  of  a  roadside  tavern  two  gendarmes 
who  were  talking  with  a  peasant  like  themselves,  who 
was  on  horseback. 

Mary  and  Bertha  were  at  this  moment  in  the  midst  of  a 
group  of  five  or  six  peasant-women,  and  the  gendarmes 
paid  no  attention  to  any  of  them.  But  Mary,  who  watched 
every  one  she  passed,  thinking  some  information  as  to 
Bertha  and  Michel  might  chance  to  reach  her,  —  Mary 
fancied  that  the  mounted  peasant  looked  at  her  with  pecu- 
liar attention.  A  few  moments  later  she  turned  her  head 
and  saw  that  the  peasant  had  left  the  gendarmes,  and  was 
hurrying  his  pony  as  if  to  overtake  the  group  of  peasant- 
women. 


216  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

"  Take  care  of  yourself,  "  she  whispered  hastily  to  Petit- 
Pierre;  "there  's  a  man  I  don't  know  who  just  examined 
me  with  great  attention  and  then  started  to  follow  us.  Go 
on  alone,  and  seem  not  to  know  me  !  " 

"Very  good;  but  suppose  he  joins  you,  Mary  ?  " 

"I  can  answer  him;  don't  be  afraid." 

"In  case  we  are  forced  to  separate,  shall  you  know 
where  to  find  me  ?  " 

"Yes;  but  don't  let  us  say  another  word  to  each  other  — 
he  is  coming." 

The  horse's  hoofs  were  now  ringing  on  the  paved 
centre  of  the  road.  Without  appearing  to  do  so  Mary 
lagged  behind  the  group  of  peasant-women.  She  could 
not  help  quivering  when  she  heard,  as  she  expected,  the 
voice  of  the  man  addressing  her. 

"  So  we  are  going  to  Nantes,  my  pretty  girl  ?  "  he  began, 
pulling  in  his  horse  when  he  reached  Mary's  side,  and 
again  looking  at  her  attentively. 

"So  it  appears,"  she  said,  seeming  to  take  the  matter 

gayly. 

"  Don't  you  want  my  company  ?  "  asked  the  rider. 

"Oh,  no,  thank  you,"  replied  Mary,  imitating  the  speech 
of  the  Vendéan  peasant-women;  "I'll  keep  on  with  the 
rest  from  our  parts." 

"The  rest  from  your  parts  ?  You  don't  expect  me  to 
believe  that  all  those  girls  before  us  are  from  your  village  ?  " 

"Whether  they  are  or  not,  what 's  that  to  you?"  retorted 
Mary,  evading  a  question  which  was  evidently  insidious. 

The  man  saw  through  her  purpose. 

"I  '11  make  you  a  proposal,"  he  said. 

"  What  sort  of  proposal  ?  " 

"Get  up  behind  me." 

"Yes,  that's  likely!"  replied  Mary;  " a  pretty  sight  it 
would  be  to  see  a  poor  girl  like  me  holding  on  to  a  man 
who  looks  like  a  gentleman." 

"  Especially  as  you  are  not  accustomed  to  hug  those  who 
look  and  are  such." 


ON    THE    HIGHWAY.  217 

"What  do  you  raeau  by  that  ?  "  asked  Mary. 

"I  mean  that  you  may  pass  for  a  peasant-girl  in  the  eyes 
of  gendarmes;  hat  my  eyes  are  another  thing.  You  are 
not  what  you  are  trying  to  seem,  Mademoiselle  Mary  de 
Souday." 

"If  you  have  no  evil  intentions  toward  me  why  do  you 
say  my  name  in  a  loud  voice  on  the  public  highway  ?  " 
asked  the  young  girl,  stopping  short. 

"  What  harm  is  there  in  that  ?  "  said  the  rider. 

"Only  that  those  women  may  have  heard  you;  and  if  I 
wear  these  clothes  you  must  know  it  is  because  my  interests 
or  my  safety  oblige  me." 

"  Oh  !  "  said  the  man,  winking  one  eye  and  affecting  a 
knowing  air;  "those  women  you  pretend  to  be  afraid  of 
know  all  about  you." 

"  No,  they  do  not  !  " 

"One  of  them  does,  any  how." 

Mary  trembled  in  spite  of  herself;  but  summoning  all 
her  strength  of  will,   she  replied:  — 

"  Neither  one  nor  all.  But  may  T  ask  why  you  are  put- 
ting these  questions  to  me  ?  " 

"Because,  if  you  are  really  alone,  as  you  say  you  are, 
I  shall  ask  you  to  stop  here  for  a  few  minutes." 

"I  ?" 

"Yes." 

"  For  what  purpose  ?  " 

"To  save  me  a  long  search  I  should  have  made  to- 
morrow if  I  had  not  met  you  now." 

"  Search  for  what  ?  " 

"Why,  for  you  !" 

"Do  you  mean  that  you  are  seeking  me  ?  " 

"Not  on  my  own  account,  you  must  understand." 

"But  who  sent  you  on  such  an  errand  ?  " 

"Those  who  love  you."  Then  lowering  his  voice  he 
added:  "Mademoiselle  Bertha  and  Monsieur  Michel." 

"Bertha?    Michel?" 

"Yes." 


218  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

"  Then  he  is  not  dead  !  "  cried  Mary.  "  Oh,  tell  me,  tell 
me,  monsieur,  I  implore  you,  what  has  become  of  them  ?  " 

The  terrible  anxiety  betrayed  by  the  tone  in  which 
Mary  said  the  words,  the  agitation  of  her  face  as  she 
awaited  the  answer,  which  seemed  to  be  one  of  life  or 
death  to  her,  were  noticed  with  curiosity  by  Courtin,  on 
whose  lips  flickered  a  diabolical  smile.  He  took  pleasure 
in  delaying  his  answer  in  order  to  prolong  the  young  girl's 
anguish. 

"No,  no  !  "  he  said  at  last,  "don't  be  uneasy;  he  '11  get 
over  it  !  " 

"  Get  over  it  !  is  he  wounded  ?  "  asked  Mary,  vehemently. 

"  Did  n't  you  know  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,  my  God  !  my  God  !  Wounded  !  "  cried  Mary,  with 
her  eyes  full  of  tears. 

"Pooh  !  "  said  Courtin,  "his  wound  won't  keep  him  long 
in  bed  or  hinder  his  marriage  !  " 

Mary  felt  that  she  turned  pale  in  spite  of  herself.  Cour- 
tin's  words  reminded  her  that  she  had  not  asked  news  of 
her  sister. 

"And  Bertha?"  she  said,  "you  have  told  me  nothing 
about  her." 

"  Your  sister  ?  Ha  !  she  's  a  dashing  girl  !  When  she 
hooks  her  arm  into  her  husband's  she  may  well  say  she 
has  earned  him." 

"But  she  is  not  ill,   she  is  not  wounded,  is  she  ?  " 

"She  is  a  trifle  ill,  but  that 's  all." 

"Poor  Bertha  !" 

"  She  did  too  much.  I  tell  you  there  's  many  a  man 
would  have  died  of  the  strain  if  he  had  done  what  she 
did." 

"  Good  God  !  "  cried  Mary;  "both  ill,  and  both  without 
care  !  " 

"Oh,  as  for  that,  no;  they  are  caring  for  one  another. 
You  ought  to  see  how  your  sister,  ill  as  she  is,  cossets  the 
young  baron.  Some  men  have  the  luck  of  it,  that 's  a  fact; 
Monsieur  Michel  is  just  as  much  petted  by  his  lady  dove 


ON    THE    HIGHWAY.  219 

as  he  was  by  his  mother.  He  '11  have  to  love  her  well,  if 
he  does  n't  want  to  be  ungrateful.'' 

Mary's  agitation  increased  at  these  words,  —  a  fact 
which  did  not  escape  the  rider's  notice,  and  he  smiled. 

"Shall  I  tell  you  something  that  I  think  I  have  dis- 
covered ?  "  he  said. 

"  What  is  it  ?  " 

"  Why,  that  Monsieur  le  baron,  in  the  matter  of  color, 
prefers  fair  hair  to  black." 

"What  do  you  mean  ?"  asked  Mary,  quivering. 

"If  you  wish  me  to  explain,  I  '11  tell  something  that  you 
know  as  well  as  I  do;  and  that  is,  that  he  loves  you.  And 
if  Bertha  is  the  name  of  his  betrothed,  Mary  is  the  name 
of  his  heart's  love." 

"Oh!"  cried  Mary,  "you  are  inventing  all  that;  Mon- 
sieur de  la  Logerie  never  told  you  any  such  thing." 

"No;  but  I  have  seen  it  for  myself;  and  as  I  cherish 
him  like  my  own  flesh  and  blood,  I  want  to  see  him  happy, 
the  dear  lad  !  Therefore  I  said  to  myself  yesterday,  when 
your  sister  asked  me  to  get  word  to  you  about  her,  that 
I  'd  clear  my  conscience  of  the  matter  and  tell  you  what  I 
think." 

"You  are  mistaken  in  your  thoughts,  monsieur,"  replied 
Mary.  "  Monsieur  Michel  does  not  care  for  me  ;  he  is  my 
sister's  betrothed  husband,  and  he  loves  her  deeply;  I  can 
assure  you  of  that." 

"You  are  wrong  not  to  trust  me,  Mademoiselle  Mary. 
Do  you  know  who  I  am?  I  am  Courtin,  Monsieur  Michel's 
head  farmer,  and  I  may  say,  his  confidential,  man;  and  if 
you  choose  —  " 

"Monsieur  Courtin,  you  will  oblige  me  extremely," 
interrupted  Mary,  "  if  you  would  choose  —  " 

"What?" 

"To  change  the  conversation." 

"Very  good;  but  allow  me  to  renew  my  offer.  Won't 
you  ride  behind  me?  —  it  would  ease  your  journey.  You 
are  going  to  Nantes,  I  suppose  ?  " 


220  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

"Yes,"  replied  Mary,  who,  little  as  she  liked  Courtin, 
thought  she  had  better  not  conceal  her  destination  from 
the  Baron  de  la  Logerie's  confidential  man. 

"Well,"  continued  Courtin,  "as  I  am  going  there  myself 
we  had  better  go  together,  unless  —  If  you  are  going 
to  Nantes  on  an  errand,  and  I  could  do  it  for  you,  I  'd 
willingly  undertake  it,  and  save  you  the  trouble." 

Mary,  in  spite  of  her  natural  truthfulness,  felt  com- 
pelled to  dissimulate;  for  it  was  all-important  that  no 
one  should  even  guess  at  the  cause  of  her  journey. 

"No,"  she  replied;  "it  is  impossible.  I  am  on  my  way 
to  join  my  father,  who  has  taken  refuge  in  Nantes,  where 
he  is  now  concealed." 

"Dear,  dear  !"  said  Courtin,  "Monsieur  le  marquis  hid- 
ing in  Nantes  !  that  's  a  clever  idea.  They  are  looking  for 
him  the  other  way,  and  talk  of  turning  the  chateau  de 
Souday  inside  out  to  its  foundations." 

"  Who  told  you  that  ?  "  asked  Mary. 

Courtin  saw  that  he  had  made  a  blunder  by  seeming  to 
know  the  plans  of  the  government  agents;  he  tried  to 
repair  it  as  best  he  could. 

"  It  was  chiefly  to  prevent  you  from  going  back  there  that 
Mademoiselle  Bertha  sent  me  in  search  of  you,"  he  said. 

"Well,  you  see,"  said  Mary,  "that  neither  my  father 
nor  I  are  at  Souday." 

"  Ah,  that  reminds  me  !  "  exclaimed  Courtin,  as  if  the 
thought  had  just  come  naturally  into  his  head;  "  if  Made- 
moiselle Bertha  and  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie  want  to  com- 
municate with  you,  how  are  they  to  address  you  ?  " 

"I  don't  know  myself  as  yet,"  replied  Mary.  "I  am  to 
meet  a  man  on  the  pont  Bousseau  who  will  take  me  to  the 
house  where  my  father  is  concealed.  After  I  get  there 
and  have  seen  him  I  will  write  to  my  sister." 

"Very  good;  if  you  have  any  communication  to  make, 
or  if  Monsieur  le  baron  and  your  sister  want  to  join  you, 
and  need  a  guide,  I  will  undertake  to  manage  it."  Then, 
with  a  meaning  smile,   he  added  :  "  I  '11  answer  for  one 


ON   THE    HIGHWAY.  221 

thing  ;  Monsieur  Michel  will  be  sending  me  more  than 
once." 

"  Enough  !  "  said  Mary. 

"Ah!  excuse  me.  I  didn't  know  it  would  make  you 
angry." 

"It  does;  your  suppositions  are  offensive  both  to  your 
master  and  to  me." 

"Pooh!"  said  Courtin,  "all  that  is  only  talk.  Mon- 
sieur le  baron  has  a  fine  fortune,  and  there  is  n't  a  young 
lady  the  country  round,  whether  she  is  an  heiress  or  not, 
who  would  turn  up  her  nose  at  it.  Say  the  word,  Made- 
moiselle Mary,"  continued  the  farmer,  who  believed  that 
everybody  worshipped  money  as  he  did;  "only  say  the 
word  and  I  '11  do  my  best  to  make  that  fortune  yours." 

"Maître  Conrtin,"  said  Mary,  stopping  short,  and  look- 
ing at  the  farmer  with  an  expression  in  her  eye  he  could 
not  mistake  ;  "  it  needs  all  my  sense  of  your  attachment  to 
Monsieur  de  la  Logerie  to  keep  me  from  being  seriously 
angry.  I  tell  you  again,  and  once  for  all,  you  are  not  to 
speak  to  me  in  that  manner  !  " 

Courtin  expected  a  different  reply,  — ■  his  conception  of 
a  "  she-wolf  "  not  admitting  of  such  delicacy.  He  was 
all  the  more  surprised  because  he  saw  very  plainly  that 
the  young  girl  shared  the  love  his  prying  eyes  had  detected 
in  the  depths  of  the  young  baron's  heart.  For  a  moment 
he  was  disconcerted.  Then  he  reflected  that  he  might  lose 
all  by  hurrying  matters  ;  better  let  the  fish  get  thoroughly 
entangled  in  the  net  before  he  pulled  it  in. 

The  mysterious  man  at  Aigrefeuille  had  told  him  it  was 
probable  that  the  leaders  of  the  Legitimist  insurrection 
would  seek  shelter  in  Nantes.  Monsieur  de  Souday  — ■ 
Courtin  believed  this  —  was  there  already;  Mary  was  on 
her  way;  Petit-Pierre  would  probably  follow.  Michel's 
love  for  the  young  girl  might  be  used,  like  Ariadne's 
thread,  to  lead  the  way  to  her  retreat,  which  would  prob- 
ably be  that  of  Petit-Pierre;  and  the  capture  of  Petit- 
Pierre  was  the  real  end  and  object  of  Courtin's  ambitious 


222  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

hopes.  If  he  persisted  in  accompanying  Mary  he  would 
rouse  her  suspicions;  and  although  he  was  most  desirous 
to  succeed  that  very  day  in  his  enterprise,  prudence  and 
strategy  prevailed,  and  he  resolved  to  give  Mary  some 
proof  which  might  reassure  her  completely  as  to  his 
intentions. 

"Ah  !  "  said  he,  "I  see  you  despise  my  horse;  but  all 
the  same  it  hurts  me  to  see  your  little  feet  cut  to  pieces  on 
those  stones." 

"Well,  it  can't  be  helped,"  replied  Mary.  "I  shall  be 
less  noticed  on  foot  than  if  I  were  mounted  behind  you  ; 
and,  if  I  dared,  I  would  ask  you  not  to  keep  at  my  side. 
Anything  that  draws  attention  to  me  is  dangerous.  Let 
me  walk  alone  and  join  those  peasant-women  just  in  front 
of  us.     I  run  less  risk  in  their  company." 

"You  are  right,"  said  Courtin;  "and  all  the  more  because 
the  gendarmes  are  behind  and  will  overtake  us  soon." 

Mary  started;  true  enough,  two  gendarmes  were  really 
following  them  about  a  thousand  feet  back. 

"Oh  !  you  need  n't  be  afraid,"  said  Courtin;  "I  '11  detain 
them  at  that  tavern.  Go  on  alone  ;  but  tell  me,  first,  what 
I  am  to  say  to  your  sister  ?  " 

"  Tell  her  that  all  my  thoughts  and  prayers  are  for  her 
welfare." 

"Is  that  all?" 

The  girl  hesitated;  she  looked  at  the  farmer;  doubtless 
the  expression  of  his  countenance  betrayed  his  secret 
thoughts,  for  she  lowered  her  head  and  answered  :  — 

"Yes,  that  is  all." 

Courtin  was  well  aware  that  although  Mary  did  not  utter 
Michel's  name,  he  was  the  first  and  last  thought  of  her 
heart. 

The  farmer  stopped  his  horse.  Mary,  on  the  other  hand, 
hastened  her  steps  and  joined  the  other  peasant-women, 
who  had  gained  some  distance  ahead  while  she  talked  with 
Courtin.  As  soon  as  she  reached  them  she  walked  on  by 
Petit-Pierre  and  told  her  what  had  happened,  —  suppres- 


ON   THE    HIGHWAY.  223 

sing,  of  course,  that  part  of  the  conversation  that  related 
to  the  young  baron. 

Petit-Pierre  thought  it  wise  to  evade  the  curiosity  of 
the  man;  for  his  name  recalled  in  a  vague  way  some 
unpleasant  memory.  She  therefore  dropped  behind  the 
other  women  with  Mary;  and  when  they  were  fairly  out 
of  sight  —  thanks  to  a  turn  in  the  road  —  the  two  fugitives 
slipped  into  a  wood  at  a  short  distance  from  the  higlnvay, 
from  the  edge  of  which  they  could  see  who  passed  it. 
After  about  fifteen  minutes  they  saw  Courtin  hurrying,  as 
best  he  could,  his  stubborn  pony.  Unfortunately,  the 
farmer  passed  too  far  from  the  place  where  they  were 
hidden  to  allow  of  Petit-Pierre's  recognizing  him  as  the 
man  who  had  visited  Pascal  Picaut's  house,  and  cut  the 
girths  of  Michel's  horse. 

When  he  was  out  of  sight  Petit-Pierre  and  her  com- 
panion returned  to  the  high-road  and  continued  their  way 
to  Nantes.  The  nearer  they  came  to  the  town,  where 
Petit-Pierre  was  promised  a  safe  retreat,  the  more  their 
fears  diminished.  She  was  now  quite  used  to  her  costume, 
and  the  farmers  who  passed  them  did  not  seem  to  perceive 
that  the  little  peasant-woman  who  tripped  so  lightly  along 
the  road  was  other  than  she  seemed  to  be.  It  was  surely 
a  great  thing  to  have  deceived  an  instinct  so  penetrating  as 
that  of  the  country-folk,  who  have  no  masters,  and  perhaps 
no  rivals,  in  this  respect  except  soldiers. 

At  last  they  came  in  sight  of  Nantes.  Petit-Pierre  put 
on  her  shoes  and  stockings,  preparatory  to  entering  the 
town.  One  thing,  however,  made  Mary  uneasy.  Courtin 
would  doubtless  be  watching  for  her  on  the  bridge;  there- 
fore, instead  of  entering  by  the  pont  Eousseau,  the  two 
women  took  advantage  of  a  boat  to  cross  the  Loire  to  the 
other  side  of  the  town. 

As  they  passed  the  Bouffai  a  hand  was  laid  on  Petit- 
Pierre's  shoulder.  She  started  and  turned  round.  The 
person  who  had  taken  that  alarming  liberty  was  a  worthy 
old  woman  on  her  way  to  market,  who  had  put  down  her 


224  THE  last  vp:ndée. 

basket  of  apples  in  order  to  rest  herself,  and  was  not  able 
to  lift  it  alone  and  replace  it  on  her  head. 

"My  dears,"  she  said  to  Petit-Pierre  and  Mary,  "do 
help  me,  please,  to  get  up  my  basket,  and  I  '11  give  you 
each  an  apple." 

Petit-Pierre  took  one  handle,  motioned  to  Mary  to  take 
the  other,  and  the  basket  was  quickly  replaced  and  balanced 
on  the  head  of  the  old  woman,  who  began  to  walk  away 
without  bestowing  the  promised  reward.  But  Petit-Pierre 
caught  her  by  the  arm,  saying  :  — 

"  Look  here,  mother,  where  's  my  apple  ?  " 

The  market-woman  gave  it  to  her.  Petit-Pierre  set  her 
teeth  into  it  and  was  munching  it  with  an  appetite  sharp- 
ened by  a  ten-mile  walk,  when,  lifting  her  head,  her  eyes 
fell  on  a  notice  posted  on  the  walls  upon  which  appeared 
in  large  letters  these  words  : — 

STATE   OF    SIEGE. 

It  was  a  ministerial  decree  placing  four  departments  in 
La  Vendée  under  martial  law. 

Petit-Pierre  went  up  to  the  notice  and  read  it  through 
from  end  to  end  tranquilly,  in  spite  of  Mary's  entreaties 
to  go  as  quickly  as  possible  to  the  house  where  she  was 
expected.  Petit-Pierre  very  justly  remarked  that  the  mat- 
ter was  of  such  importance  to  her  that  she  was  right  in 
obtaining  a  thorough  knowledge  of  it. 

Presently,  however,  the  two  women  went  their  way  into 
the  dark  and  narrow  streets  of  the  old  Breton  city. 


WHAT    BECAME    OF    JEAN    OULLIEK.  22i 


XXIII. 

WHAT   BECAME    OF    JEAN    OULLIEK. 

Though  it  was  next  to  impossible  for  the  soldiers  to  dis- 
cover Jean  Oullier  in  the  hiding-place  poor  Trigaud's  her- 
culean strength  had  made  for  him,  nevertheless,  now  that 
Courte-Joie  and  his  companion  were  dead,  Jean  Oullier 
had  only  exchanged  the  prison  into  which  the  Blues  would 
have  thrust  him,  had  he  fallen  into  their  hands,  for  another 
prison  more  terrible,  a  death  more  awful  than  any  his 
captors  could  inflict  upon  him.  He  was  buried  alive;  and 
in  this  deserted  region  there  was  little  hope  that  any 
human  being  would  hear  his  cries. 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  night  which  followed  his 
parting  from  his  two  associates,  finding  they  did  not 
return,  he  felt  certain  that  some  fatal  event  had  overtaken 
them;  evidently,  they  were  either  dead  or  prisoners.  The 
mere  idea  of  the  position  in  which  he  himself  was  placed 
was  enough  to  freeze  the  blood  in  the  veins  of  the  bravest 
man;  but  Jean  Oullier  had  one  of  those  strongly  religious 
natures  which  continue  a  struggle  in  faith  when  the  brav- 
est despair.  He  commended  his  soul  to  God  in  a  short  but 
fervent  prayer,  and  then  set  to  work  as  ardently  as  he  had 
done  in  the  burning  ruins  of  La  Pénissière. 

Up  to  this  time  he  had  been  crouching,  bent  double, 
with  his  chin  on  his  knees  ;  it  was  the  only  position  the 
cramped  quarters  of  the  excavation  allowed.  He  now 
endeavored  to  change  it,  and  after  many  efforts  he  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  on  his  knees.  Then  bracing  himself  on 
his  hands  and  applying  his  shoulders  to  the  heavy  stone, 
he  endeavored  to  raise  it.     But  that  which  was  child's 

VOL.    II. —  15 


226  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

play  to  Trigaud  was  impossible  to  any  other  man.  Jean 
Oullier  could  not  even  shake  the  enormous  mass  which  the 
giant  had  placed  between  him  and  the  heavens. 

He  felt  the  ground  beneath  him;  it  was  not  earth  but 
rock,  —  rock  to  right,  rock  to  left,  above  and  below  him, 
rock  only. 

The  slab  of  granite  which  Trigaud  had  laid  like  a  mon- 
strous cover  on  the  stone  box,  slanted  forward  and  left  an 
open  space  about  four  inches  wide  between  the  bed  of  the 
rivulet  and  the  imprisoned  man,  through  which  the  air 
could  reach  him. 

It  was  on  this  side  that  Jean  Oullier,  after  fully  recon- 
noitring his  position,  decided  to  apply  his  efforts. 

He  broke  the  point  of  his  knife  against  the  rock  and 
made  a  chisel  of  it.  The  butt-end  of  his  pistol  answered 
for  a  hammer,  and  he  set  to  work  to  widen  the  aperture. 
He  spent  twenty-four  hours  at  this  labor,  without  other 
sustenance  than  that  contained  in  his  huntsman's  brandy- 
flask,  from  which  he  sipped  from  time  to  time  some  drops 
of  the  strengthening  liquor  it  contained.  During  those 
twenty-four  hours  his  courage  and  force  of  will  did  not 
desert  him  for  a  single  instant. 

At  last,  on  the  evening  of  the  second  day,  he  succeeded 
in  passing  his  head  through  the  aperture  he  had  cut  in  the 
base  of  his  prison  ;  before  long  his  shoulders  could  follow 
his  head  ;  and  then,  clasping  the  rock  and  making  a  vigor- 
ous effort,  he  drew  out  the  rest  of  his  body. 

It  was  indeed  high  time  that  he  did  so;  his  strength  was 
exhausted.  He  rose  to  his  knees,  then  to  his  feet,  and 
attempted  to  walk.  But  his  injured  ankle  had  swelled  to 
such  a  frightful  extent  during  the  thirty-six  hours  he  had 
spent  in  that  horribly  constrained  position  that  at  the  first 
step  he  took  all  the  nerves  of  his  body  quivered  as  if  they 
were  wrung.  He  uttered  a  cry  and  fell  gasping  on  the 
heather,  mastered  at  last  by  the  terrible  pain. 

Night  was  coming  on.  Listen  as  he  might,  Jean  Oullier 
could  hear  no  sound.     The  thought  came  to  him  that  this 


WHAT   BECAME    OF   JEAN    OULLIER.  227 

night,  now  beginning  to  wrap  the  world  in  its  shadows, 
would  be  his  last.  Again  he  commended  his  soul  to  God, 
praying  him  to  watch  over  the  two  children  he  had  loved 
so  well,  and  who,  but  for  him,  would  long  ago  have  been 
orphaned  through  their  father's  indifference.  Then,  deter- 
mined to  neglect  no  chances,  he  dragged  himself  by  his 
hands,  or  rather  crept,  in  the  direction  where  the  sun  had 
set,  which  he  knew  to  be  that  of  the  nearest  dwellings. 

He  had  gone  in  this  way  nearly  a  mile  when  he  reached 
a  little  hill,  whence  he  could  see  the  lights  in  a  few  lonely 
houses  scattered  on  the  moor.  Each  of  them  was  to  him  a 
pharos,  beckoning  to  life  and  safety;  but,  in  spite  of  all 
his  courage,  his  strength  now  deserted  him  and  he  could 
do  no  more.  It  was  sixty  hours  since  he  had  eaten  any- 
thing. The  stumps  of  the  brambles  and  the  gorse,  cut 
down  in  the  haying  season  and  sharpened  by  the  scythe, 
had  torn  his  hands  and  chest,  and  loss  of  blood  from  these 
wounds  still  further  weakened  him. 

He  allowed  himself  to  roll  into  a  ditch  by  the  wayside  ; 
determined  to  go  no  farther,  but  to  die  there.  Intense 
thirst  possessed  him,  and  he  drank  a  little  water  which  was 
stagnant  in  the  ditch.  He  was  so  weak  that  his  hand 
could  scarcely  reach  his  mouth;  his  head  seemed  abso- 
lutely empty.  From  time  to  time  he  fancied  he  heard  in 
his  brain  a  dull,  lugubrious  roar,  like  that  of  the  sea  mak- 
ing a  breach  over  a  ship  and  about  to  engulf  it;  a  sort  of 
veil  seemed  to  spread  before  his  eyes,  and  behind  that  veil 
coursed  myriads  of  sparks,  which  died  away  and  sparkled 
again  like  phosphorescent  gleams. 

The  unfortunate  man  felt  that  this  was  death.  He  tried 
to  shout,  not  caring  whether  enemies  or  friends  came  to 
his  relief;  but  his  voice  died  away  in  his  throat,  and  he 
scarcely  heard  himself  the  hoarse  cry  which  he  managed 
to  emit. 

Thus  he  remained  for  over  an  hour,  in  a  dying  condi- 
tion. Then,  little  by  little,  the  veil  before  his  eyes 
thickened  and  took  prismatic  tints;   the  humming  in  his 


228  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

braiu  had  strange  modulations,  and  for  a  time  lie  lost  con- 
sciousness of  all  about  him. 

But  his  powerful  being  could  not  be  annihilated  without 
a  further  struggle;  the  lethargic  stillness  in  which  he 
remained  for  some  time  allowed  the  heart  to  regulate  its 
pulses,  the  blood  to  circulate  less  feverishly.  The  torpor 
in  which  he  now  lay  did  not  lessen  the  acuteness  of  his 
senses.  Presently  he  heard  a  sound  which  his  huntsman's 
ear  did  not  mistake  for  a  single  instant.  A  step  was  com- 
ing across  the  heather,  and  that  step  he  knew  to  be  a 
woman's. 

That  woman  could  save  him  !  Torpid  as  he  was,  Jean 
Oullier  understood  it.  But  when  he  tried  to  call  or  make 
a  movement  to  attract  her  attention  he  was  like  a  man  in 
a  trance,  who  sees  the  preparations  for  his  funeral  and  is 
unable  to  arrest  them;  he  perceived  with  terror  that  noth- 
ing remained  of  him  but  his  intelligence,  and  that  bis 
body,  completely  paralyzed,  refused  to  obey  him.  As  the 
hapless  being  nailed  in  his  coffin  makes  frantic  efforts  to 
burst  the  iron  barrier  which  parts  him  from  the  world,  so 
Jean  Oullier  strained  at  every  spring  which  Nature  puts  at 
the  service  of  man's  will  to  conquer  matter.     In  vain. 

And  yet,  the  steps  were  coming  nearer;  each  minute, 
each  second  made  them  more  distinct,  more  unmistakable 
to  his  ear.  He  fancied  that  every  pebble  they  displaced 
rolled  to  his  heart;  his  agony  from  the  multiplicity  of  his 
abortive  efforts  grew  intense;  his  hair  rose  on  his  head; 
an  icy  sweat  stood  on  his  brow.  It  was  worse  and  more 
cruel  than  death  itself,  for  death  feels  nothing. 

The  woman  passed. 

Jean  Oullier  heard  the  thorns  on  the  briers  catch  and 
scrape  her  dress  as  if  even  they  wished  to  stop  her;  he  saw 
her  shadow  lying  dark  upon  the  bushes;  then  she  passed 
away,  and  the  sound  of  her  steps  was  lost  in  the  sighing  of 
the  wind  among  the  reeds. 

The  unfortunate  man  believed  he  was  doomed;  and  the 
moment   hope  abandoned   him  the  awful  struggle  he  had 


WHAT    BECAME   OF   JEAN   OULLIEK.  229 

fought  against  himself  came  to  an  end.  He  recovered 
calmness  and  mentally  prayed  to  God,  commending  his 
soul  to  Him. 

This  prayer  so  absorbed  him  that  it  was  not  until  he 
heard  the  noisy  breathing  of  a  dog,  which  passed  its  head 
through  the  bushes  scenting  an  emanation,  that  he  noticed 
the  coming  of  an  animal.  He  turned,  with  an  effort,  not 
his  head,  that  was  impossible,  but  his  eyes  in  the  direction 
of  the  creature,  and  there  saw  a  cur  gazing  at  him  with 
frightened  but  intelligent  eyes. 

Catching  Jean  Oullier's  gaze  the  animal  retreated  to  a 
little  distance  and  began  to  bark.  At  this  instant  Jean 
Oullier  fancied  that  he  heard  the  woman  calling  to  her 
dog;  but  the  creature  did  not  choose  to  leave  its  post,  con- 
tinuing to  bark.  It  was  a  last  hope,  —  a  hope  that  was  not 
balked. 

Tired  of  calling  to  her  dog,  and  curious  to  know  what 
excited  it,  the  woman  retraced  her  steps.  Chance,  or 
Providence,  willed  that  this  woman  should  be  the  widow 
of  Pascal  Picaut.  As  she  neared  the  bushes  she  saw  a 
man;  stooping  over  him  she  recognized  Jean  Oullier. 

At  first  she  thought  him  dead;  then  she  saw  his  eyes, 
unnaturally  wide  open,  fixed  upon  her.  She  laid  her  hand 
upon  the  huntsman's  heart  and  felt  it  beating;  she  lifted 
him  to  a  sitting  posture,  threw  a  little  water  on  his  face, 
and  poured  a  few  drops  through  his  clenched  teeth.  Then 
—  as  if  through  contact  with  a  living  being  he  recovered 
contact  with  life  itself  —  Jean  Oullier  felt  the  enormous 
weight  which  lay  upon  him  lightening;  warmth  returned 
to  his  torpid  limbs;  he  felt  its  glow  steal  softly  to  each 
extremity;  tears  of  gratitude  welled  from  his  eyelids  and 
rolled  down  his  sunken  cheeks;  he  caught  the  woman's 
hand  and  carried  it  to  his  lips,  wetting  it  with  tears. 

She,  on  her  side,  was  greatly  moved.  Philippist  as  she 
Avas,  the  good  woman  highly  esteemed  the  old  Chouan. 

"Well,  well,"  she  said,  "don't  take  on  so,  my  Jean 
Oullier  !     It  is  all  natural,  what  I  am  doing  !     I  'd  do  as 


230  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

much  for  any  Christian;  and  all  the  more  for  you,  who  are 
a  man  after  God's  own  heart  !  " 

"  That  does  n't  prevent  —  "  said  Jean  Oullier. 

He  could  say  no  more,  his  breath  failed  him. 

"  Does  n't  prevent  what  ?  "  asked  the  widow. 

Oullier  made  an  effort. 

"Does  n't  prevent  —  that  I  owe  you  my  life,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  nonsense  !"  exclaimed  Marianne. 

"It  is  as  I  say.     Without  you,  I  should  have  died." 

"Without  my  dog,  Jean.  You  see  it  is  n't  me,  but  the 
good  God  you  have  to  thank."  Then  noticing  with  horror 
that  he  was  covered  with  blood,  "  Why,  you  are  wounded  !  " 
she  exclaimed. 

"Oh,  no,  nothing  but  scratches.  My  worst  trouble  is 
that  I  have  dislocated  my  ankle;  and  besides,  I  haven't 
eaten  anything  for  nearly  three  days.  It  is  chiefly  weak- 
ness that  is  killing  me." 

"  Good  gracious  !  but  see  here,  I  was  just  carrying  din- 
ner to  some  men  who  are  getting  litter  for  me  on  the  moor. 
You  shall  have  their  soup." 

So  saying,  the  widow  put  down  the  basket  she  was  carry- 
ing, untied  the  four  corners  of  a  cloth  in  which  were 
several  porringers  full  of  soup  and  bouilli  smoking  hot. 
She  gave  several  spoonfuls  to  Jean  Oullier,  who  felt  his 
strength  returning  as  every  mouthful  of  the  warm  and  suc- 
culent broth  got  down  into  his  stomach. 

"Ah  !  "  he  said;  and  he  breathed  noisily. 

A  smile  of  satisfaction  crossed  the  grave,  sad  face  of  the 
widow. 

"Now,"  she  said,  sitting  down  opposite  to  him,  "what 
are  you  going  to  do  ?  Of  course  you  know  the  red- 
breeches  are  after  you  ?  " 

"Alas  !  "  said  Jean  Oullier;  "I  have  lost  all  power  with 
my  poor  leg.  It  will  be  months  before  I  can  roam  the 
woods  as  I  must  to  escape  a  prison.  What  I  had  better 
do,"  he  added  with  a  sigh,  "is  to  get  to  Maître  Jacques; 
he  will  give  me  a  corner  in  some  of  his  burrows,  where  I 
can  stay  till  my  leg  is  well." 


WHAT   BECAME   OF   JEAN   OULLIER.  231 

"But  your  master  ?  —  and  his  daughters  ?  " 

"The  marquis  won't  go  back  yet  awhile  to  Souday;  and 
he  is  right." 

"  What  will  he  do,  then  ?  " 

"Probably  cross  the  chaunel  with  the  young  ladies." 

"That 's  a  pretty  idea  of  yours,  Jean  Oullier,  to  go  and 
live  among  that  crew  of  bandits  who  follow  Maître  Jacques  ! 
Fine  care  they  '11  take  of  you  !  " 

"They  are  the  only  ones  who  can  take  me  in  without 
being  compromised." 

"How  about  me?  You  forget  me,  and  that  isn't  nice 
of  you,  Jean." 

"You?" 

"Yes,  me  !" 

"But  you  forget  the  ordinance." 

"What  ordinance  ?" 

"About  the  penalties  incurred  by  those  who  harbor 
Chouans." 

"  Pooh  !  my  Jean  ;  such  orders  are  not  issued  for  honest 
folk,  but  for  scoundrels  !  " 

"Besides,  you  hate  Chouans." 

"No;  it  is  only  brigands  I  hate,  whichever  side  they 
are.  They  were  brigands  who  killed  my  poor  Pascal, 
and  on  those  brigands  I  '11  avenge  his  death  if  I  can.  But 
you,  Jean  Oullier,  your  cockade,  be  it  white  or  tricolor,  is 
that  of  an  honest  man,  and  I  '11  save  you." 

"But  I  can't  walk  a  step." 

"  That 's  no  matter.  Even  if  you  could  walk,  Jean,  I  'd 
be  afraid  to  take  you  to  my  house  by  daylight,  —  not  that 
I  fear  for  myself;  but  ever  since  the  death  of  that  young 
man  I  fear  treachery.  Get  back  under  those  bushes  ;  hide 
as  best  you  can;  wait  till  dark,  and  I  '11  come  back  with 
a  cart  and  fetch  you.  Then,  to-morrow,  I  '11  go  for  the 
bone-setter  at  Machecoul;  he  '11  rub  his  hand  over  the 
nerves  of  your  foot,  and  in  three  days  you  '11  run  like  a 
rabbit." 

"  Hang  it  !  I  know  that  would  be  best,  but  —  " 


232  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

"Would  n't  you  do  as  much  for  me  ?  " 

"You  know,  Marianne,  I'd  go  through  fire  and  water 
for  you." 

"Then  don't  say  another  Avord.  I  shall  be  back  after 
dark." 

"Thank  you;  I  accept  your  offer.  You  may  be  very 
sure  you  are  not  helping  an  ungrateful  man." 

"  It  is  not  to  get  your  gratitude  I  am  doing  it,  Jean 
Oullier;  but  to  fulfil  my  duty  as  an  honest  woman." 

She  looked  about  her. 

"  What  are  you  looking  for  ?  "  asked  Jean. 

"  I  was  thinking  if  you  tried  to  get  farther  back  among 
the  bushes  you  would  be  safer  than  in  this  ditch." 

"I  think  it  is  impossible,"  said  Oullier,  showing  his 
ankle,  now  swelled  to  the  size  of  a  man's  head,  and  his 
torn  hands  and  face.  "Besides,  I  am  not  badly  off  here; 
you  passed  close  by  these  bushes  and  did  not  suspect  they 
hid  a  man." 

"Yes,  but  a  dog  might  pass  and  smell  you  out,  just  as 
mine  did.  Remember,  my  Jean,  the  war  is  over,  and  the 
days  of  denunciation  and  vengeance  will  begin,  if  they 
have  not  already  begun." 

"Bah  !"  said  Jean  Oullier,  "we  must  leave  something 
for  the  good  God  to  do." 

The  widow  was  no  less  of  a  believer  than  the  old  Chouan. 
She  gave  him  a  piece  of  bread,  cut  an  armful  of  ferns 
with  which  she  made  him  a  bed,  and  then,  after  carefully 
raising  the  branches  of  the  briers  and  brambles  about  him, 
and  satisfying  herself  that  the  eye  of  no  passer  would 
detect  him,  she  departed,  exhorting  him  to  patience. 

Jean  Oullier  settled  himself  as  comfortably  as  he  could, 
offered  a  fervent  thanksgiving  to  the  Lord,  munched  his 
bread,  and  presently  went  to  sleep  in  that  heavy  sleep 
which  follows  great  prostration. 

He  must  have  been  lying  there  several  hours  when  the 
sound  of  voices  woke  him.  In  the  species  of  somnolence 
which  followed  the  state  of  torpor  he  had  been  in,   he 


WHAT    BECAME    OF   JEAN    OULLIEE.  233 

fancied  he  heard  the  name  of  his  young  mistresses; 
suspicious  as  all  men  of  his  stamp  are  in  the  matter  of 
their  affections,  he  fancied  some  danger  must  be  threaten- 
ing either  Bertha  or  Mary,  and  the  thought  was  like  a 
lever,  which  lifted  in  a  second  the  torpor  of  his  mind. 
He  rose  on  his  elbow,  gentty  moved  the  brambles  which 
made  a  thick  rampart  before  him,  and  looked  through  them 
into  the  road. 

It  was  dark,  but  not  dark  enough  to  prevent  him  from 
seeing  the  outline  of  two  men  who  were  sitting  on  a  fallen 
tree  on  the  other  side  of  the  road. 

"Why  didn't  you  continue  to  follow  her,  as  you  recog- 
nized her  ?  "  said  one  of  them  whom,  from  his  strong 
German  accent,  Jean  Oullier  judged  to  be  a  stranger  in 
these  regions. 

"Ha!  damn  it  !  "  said  the  other.  "She-wolf  as  she  is, 
I  never  thought  her  so  wily;  but  she  gave  me  the  slip,  fool 
that  I  was." 

"You  might  have  been  certain  that  the  one  we  were 
after  was  in  that  group  of  peasant-women,  and  that  Mary 
de  Souday  only  stayed  behind  to  meet  and  detain  you." 

"As  for  that,  you  are  right  enough;  for  when  I  asked 
that  same  group  of  women  where  the  young  girl  was  they 
said  that  she  and  her  companion  had  lagged  behind  and 
left  them  on  the  road." 

"What  did  you  do  then  ?  " 

"  Hang  it  !  I  put  up  the  pony  at  an  inn ,  and  hid  myself 
at  the  farther  end  of  Pirmile  and  waited  for  them." 

"In  vain,  I  suppose." 

"In  vain,  — for  more  than  two  hours." 

"  They  must  have  taken  a  cross-road  and  entered  Nantes 
by  the  other  bridge." 

"Probably." 

"  It  is  very  unfortunate.  Who  knows  if  such  a  piece  of 
luck  will  ever  happen  to  you  again?  Perhaps  you  may 
never  find  her  now." 

"Oh,  yes.  I  shall.     Let  me  alone  for  that." 


234  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

"  How  will  you  do  it  ?  " 

"Oh!  —  as  my  neighbor  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  or  my 
friend  Jean  Oullier  would  say  —  'God  wants  her  soul;' 
and  I  have  at  home  just  the  bloodhound  we  need  for  the 
hunt." 

"Bloodhound?" 

"Yes,  a  regular  bloodhound.  There  is  something  the 
matter  with  one  of  his  front  paws,  but  as  soon  as  that 
is  well  I  '11  put  a  chain  round  his  neck  and  he  '11  take 
us  straight  in  the  direction  we  want  to  go,  without  any 
trouble  to  us,  except  taking  care  he  does  not  pull  too 
hard  on  the  chain  and  break  it  in  his  hurry  to  get  there." 

"Come,  stop  joking;  these  are  serious  matters." 

"Joking  !  what  do  you  take  me  for  ?  Do  you  suppose  I 
joke  in  presence  of  the  fifty  thousand  francs  you  have 
promised  me  ?  —  for  you  really  did  say  fifty  thousand, 
did  n't  you  ?  " 

"  You  ought  to  be  sure  of  it,  for  you  have  made  me  tell 
you  a  score  of  times." 

"I  know  that;  but  I  am  never  tired  of  hearing  it,  any 
more  than  I  shall  be  tired  of  fingering  the  louis  when  I  get 
them." 

"Deliver  us  the  person  we  want,  and  you  shall  have 
them." 

"Bless  me!  I  hear  those  yellow-boys  chinking  in  my 
ears,  —  dzing  !  dzing  !  " 

"Meantime,  tell  me  what  you  mean  by  a  bloodhound." 

"  Oh  !  I  'd  tell  you  willingly,  but  —  " 

"But  what?" 

"Give  and  take,  you  know." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  'give  and  take  '  ?  " 

"Well,  as  I  told  you  the  other  day,  I  wish  to  oblige  the 
government,  partly  because  I  respect  it,  and  partly  because 
T  like  to  harass  the  nobles  and  all  that  belong  to  them  — 
for  I  hate  'em  all.  But,  all  the  same,  while  obliging  the 
government  of  my  choice,  I  should  be  glad  to  see  the  color 
of  its  money,  —  for,  don't  you  see,  thus  far  I  have  given 


WHAT   BECAME   OF   JEAN   OULLIEK.  235 

it  much  more  than  I  receive.  Besides,  how  Jo  I  know 
that  if  the  government  lays  hold  of  that  person  for  whom 
they  offer  her  weight  in  gold,  how  do  I  know,  I  say,  that 
they  will  pay  what  they  promised  .me,  or  rather  promised 


you 


?» 


"You  are  a  fool." 

"I  should  be  a  fool  if  I  did  not  say  what  I  am  saying  to 
you  now.  I  like  to  make  myself  secure;  and  if  I  must 
speak  frankly,  I  don't  see  much  security  in  this  affair." 

"You  run  the  same  risks  that  I  do.  I  have  received 
from  an  eminent  person  the  promise  of  one  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  if  I  succeed." 

"One  hundred  thousand  francs!  That's  very  little  to 
have  come  so  far  to  get.  Come,  own  that  it  is  two  hun- 
dred thousand,  and  that  you  give  me  a  quarter  of  it; 
because  I  am  on  the  spot  and  don't  have  to  travel  for  the 
money  as  you  do.  Two  hundred  thousand  francs  !  You 
are  pretty  lucky  !  A  good  round  sum  and  rings  well.  So 
be  it,  I  '11  have  confidence  in  the  government;  but,  let  me 
ask,  why  should  I  have  it  in  you  ?  How  can  I  be  sure  you 
won't  slip  off  with  the  money  when  the  government  pays 
it?  And  if  you  should,  where 's  the  court  or  the  judge 
before  whom  I  could  sue  you,  I  'd  like  to  know  ?  " 

"My  good  sir,  political  associates  must  trust  each  other; 
faith  signs  their  contract." 

"Is  that  why  they  are  so  wonderfully  well  kept? 
Frankly,  I  'd  prefer  another  signature." 

"Whose?" 

"Yours,  or  that  of  the  minister  with  whom  you  are 
dealing." 

"Well,  we'll  try  to  satisfy  you." 

"Hush!" 

"What?" 

"Don't  you  hear  something  ? " 

"Yes;  some  one  is  coming  this  way.  I  think  I  hear  the 
wheels  of  a  cart." 

The  two  men  rose  at  once,  and  by  the  light  of  the  moon. 


236  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

which  was  then  shining,  Jean  Oullier,  who  had  not  lost  a 
single  word  of  the  conversation,  saw  their  faces.  One  of 
the  men  was  a  stranger  to  him;  the  other  proved  to  be 
Courtin,  —  a  fact  he  knew  already  by  the  tones  of  the 
farmer's  voice  and  the  mention  he  had  made  of  Michel  and 
the  "she- wolves." 

"  Let  us  go,  "  said  the  stranger. 

"No,"  replied  Courtin;  "I  've  a  number  of  things  to  say 
to  you.  Let  us  hide  in  this  bush  till  the  cart  has  gone  by, 
and  then  we  can  finish  our  business." 

They  walked  toward  the  ditch.  Jean  knew  he  was 
lost;  but,  unwilling  to  be  caught  like  a  hare  on  its  form, 
he  rose  to  his  knees,  and  pulled  his  knife  from  his  belt.  It 
was  blunt,  to  be  sure,  but  in  a  hand  to  hand  struggle  could 
still  be  of  use.  He  had  no  other  weapon  and  supposed  the 
two  men  to  be  unarmed.  But  Courtin,  who  had  seen  a 
man's  form  rise  in  the  bush  and  heard  the  rustle  of  the 
reeds  and  brambles,  made  three  steps  backward,  seized  his 
gun  hidden  behind  the  fallen  tree,  cocked  one  barrel, 
lifted  the  weapon  to  his  shoulder,  and  fired.  A  stifled  cry 
followed  the  explosion. 

"What  have  you  done  ?"  cried  the  stranger,  who  seemed 
to  think  Courtin's  action  rather  too  expeditious. 

"See  !  see  !"  replied  Courtin,  trembling  and  very  pale; 
"a  man  was  watching  us." 

The  stranger  went  to  the  bushes  and  parted  the  branches. 

"Take  care!  take  care!"  said  Courtin;  "if  it  is  a 
Chouan  and  he  is  not  quite  dead,  he  '11  attack  you." 

So  saying,  Courtin,  with  his  other  barrel  cocked,  held 
himself  ready  to  fire  at  a  safe  distance. 

"It  is  a  peasant,"  said  the  stranger,  "but  I  think  he  is 
dead." 

So  saying,  he  took  Jean  Oullier  by  the  arm  and  dragged 
him  out  of  the  ditch.  Courtin,  seeing  that  the  man  was 
motionless  and  apparently  dead,  ventured  to  approach. 

"Jean  Oullier  !"  he  cried  out,  recognizing  the  Vendéan, 
"Jean  Oullier  !    My  faith!  I  never  expected  to  kill  a  man,. 


WHAT    BECAME    OF   JEAN    OULLIER.  2     i 

but  since  it  was  to  be,  it  is  a  grand  thing  it  was  he  instead 
of  another.  That,  I  can  truly  say,  deserves  to  be  called  a 
lucky  shot" 

••Meantime,"  said  the  stranger,  ''here  conies  the  cart.-' 

"  Yes,  it  is  at  the  top  of  the  hill,  for  the  horse  is  trotting. 
Come,  there  's  no  time  to  lose;  we  had  better  be  off.     Is 
.  ally  dead  ?  " 

"He  seems  so." 

'"Very  good;  forward  then." 

The  stranger  dropped  Jean  Oullier's  arm,  and  the  head 
fell  back  upon  the  ground  with  the  heavy  thud  of  a  dead- 

-  _  at. 

es,  he 's  dead,  sure  enough  Î  "  said  Courtin. 
Then,  not  daring  to  go  nearer,  he  pointed  his  finger  at  the 
body.  "There,"  said  he,  "that  secures  us  our  pay  better 
than  any  signature;  that  dead  body  is  worth  two  hundred 
thousand  francs  to  us." 

•■  How  so  ?  " 

"  He  was  the  only  man  who  could  get  that  bloodhound  I 
told  you  about  away  from  me.     I  thought  he  was  dead.     I 
was  mistaken.     Xow  that  I  know  it  with  my  own  eye 
are  safe.     Forward  !  forward  !  " 

"  Yes.  for  here  comes  the  cart." 

The  vehicle  was  now  not  a  hundred  steps  from  the  body. 
The  two  men  sprang  into  the  bushes  and  disappeared  in 
the  darkness,  while  the  widow  Picaut,  who  was  coming 
for  Jean  Chillier,  alarmed  by  the  shot,  ran  forward  to  the 
place  where  she  had  left  him. 


238  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XXIV. 

MAÎTRE   COURTIN's    BATTERIES. 

A  few  weeks  had  sufficed  to  bring  about  a  radical  upset- 
ting of  the  lives  of  all  those  personages  who,  from  the 
beginning  of  this  narrative,  have  successively  passed  under 
the  eyes  of  the  reader. 

Martial  law  was  proclaimed  in  the  four  departments  of 
La  Vendée.  The  general  who  commanded  them  issued  a 
proclamation  inviting  the  country-people  to  give  in  their 
submission,  promising  to  receive  it  with  indulgence.  The 
attempt  at  insurrection  had  so  miserably  failed  that  the 
greater  part  of  the  Vendéans  abandoned  all  hope  for  the 
future.  A  few  of  them,  who  were  openly  compromised, 
followed  the  advice  of  their  own  leaders,  given  when  they 
disbanded  them,  and  gave  up  their  arms.  But  the  civil 
authorities  would  not  accept  this  capitulation;  they  seized 
the  offered  arms  and  arrested  their  owners.  A  goodly 
number  of  these  confiding  persons  were  thrown  into  prison, 
and  this  impolitic  severity  paralyzed  the  pacific  intentions 
of  those  who  with  greater  prudence  were  awaiting  events. 

Maître  Jacques  owed  to  these  proceedings  a  large 
increase  in  the  number  of  his  troop;  he  made  so  much, 
and  made  it  so  cleverly,  out  of  the  conduct  of  his  adversa- 
ries, that  he  finally  gathered  about  him  a  body  of  men 
large  enough  to  still  hold  out  in  the  forests  while  the  rest 
of  La  Vendée  disarmed  itself. 

Gaspard,  Louis  Renaud,  Bras-d' Acier,  and  other  leaders 
put  the  sea  between  them  and  a  stern  government.  The 
Marquis  de  Souday  alone  could  not  resolve  upon  that  step. 
Ever  since  he  had  parted  from  Petit-Pierre  —  that  is,  ever 


MAÎTRE   COUKTIN'S    BATTERIES.  239 

since  Petit-Pierre  had  left  him  —  the  unfortunate  gentle- 
man had  completely  lost  the  jovial  good-humor  with  which, 
as  a  matter  of  honor,  he  had,  up  to  the  last  moment, 
opposed  the  gloomy  views  of  his  co-leaders  ;  but  as  soon  as 
duty  no  longer  forced  him  to  be  gay,  the  marquis  dropped 
to  the  lower  extreme  and  became,  as  we  may  say,  sad  unto 
death.  The  defeat  at  Chêne  not  only  wounded  him  in  his 
political  sympathies,  but  it  knocked  over  to  their  founda- 
tions all  the  castles  in  Spain  he  had  been  so  gleefully 
erectirig.  He  now  saw  in  this  partisan  existence,  which 
his  imagination  had  been  endowing  with  romantic  charm, 
things  he  had  never  dreamed  of,  —  reverses  which  over- 
whelmed him,  obscure  poverty,  the  mean  and  trivial  priva- 
tions of  an  exile's  life.  He  reached  a  point,  —  even  he, 
who  so  recently  had  thought  life  in  his  little  castle  insuf- 
ferably insipid,  —  he  reached  a  point  at  which  he  regretted 
the  good,  pleasant  evenings  which  the  caresses  and  chatter 
of  his  girls  made  so  pleasant,  —  above  all,  he  missed  his 
gossip  with  Jean  Oullier;  and  he  was  so  unhappy  over  the 
latter's  continued  absence  that  he  made  inquiries  about 
his  huntsman's  fate  with  a  solicitude  not  in  any  way  cus- 
tomary with  him. 

The  marquis  was  in  this  frame  of  mind  when  he  one  day 
encountered  Maître  Jacques  loitering  about  the  environs 
of  Grand-Lieu  and  watching  the  movements  of  a  column 
of  soldiers.  The  Marquis  de  Souday  had  never  had  much 
liking  for  the  master  of  "  rabbits,  "  whose  first  act  of  dis- 
cipline had  been  to  defy  his  authority.  The  independent 
spirit  displayed  by  Maître  Jacques  had  always  seemed  to 
the  old  gentleman  a  fatal  example  set  to  the  Vendéans. 
Maître  Jacques,  on  the  other  hand,  hated  the  marquis,  as  he 
hated  all  whose  birth  or  social  position  gave  them  natu- 
rally the  position  of  leaders;  and  yet  be  was  so  touched  by 
the  misery  to  which  he  saw  the  old  gentleman  reduced  in 
the  cottage  where,  after  Petit-Pierre's  departure,  the  mar- 
quis had  taken  refuge,  that  he  offered  to  hide  him  in  the 
forest  of  Touvois;  promising,  besides  the  good  cheer  which 


240  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

always  reigned  in  his  little  camp,  and  which  he  proposed 
to  share  with  him,  some  amusement  in  occasional  frays 
indulged  in  with  the  soldiers  of  King  Louis-Philippe. 
Needless  to  say  that  the  marquis  always  bluntly  called  that 
king  "Philippe." 

It  was  the  last  consideration  we  have  mentioned  which 
determined  Monsieur  de  Souday  to  accept  Maître  Jacques' 
proposals.  He  burned  to  avenge  the  ruin  of  his  hopes,  and 
to  make  some  one  pay  for  his  disappointments,  for  the  an- 
noyance his  separation  from  his  daughters  caused  him,  and 
for  the  grief  he  felt  at  Jean  Oullier's  disappearance.  He 
accordingly  accompanied  the  lord  of  the  burrows,  who, 
from  being  his  subordinate  —  or  rather  his  insubordinate  — 
now  became  his  protector;  and  the  latter,  really  touched 
by  the  simplicity  and  good-nature  of  the  marquis,  showed 
him  much  more  considerate  attention  than  his  rough 
exterior  and  ways  of  life  would  seem  to  promise. 

As  for  Bertha,  the  day  after  her  retreat  to  Courtin's 
house,  and  as  soon  as  she  recovered  some  strength,  she 
plainly  perceived  that  to  be  under  the  same  roof  with  the 
man  she  loved,  far  from  the  protection  of  her  father,  and 
without  Jean  Oullier,  who  could  in  a  way  replace  him, 
was,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  an  impropriety;  and,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  Michel  was  wounded,  might  be  interpreted 
in  a  way  to  injure  her  reputation.  She  therefore  left  the 
farmhouse  and  installed  herself  with  Eosine  in  thé  Tinguy 
cottage.  This  was  about  three  quarters  of  a  mile  distant 
from  Courtin's  house,  where  she  went  daily  to  give  Michel 
all  the  care  of  a  sister,  and  the  delicate  attentions  of  a 
loving  woman. 

The  tenderness,  devotion,  and  self-abnegation  of  which 
Bertha  gave  Michel  so  many  proofs  touched  the  young  man 
deeply;  but  as  they  did  not  in  any  degree  affect  his  feel- 
ings for  Mary,  his  situation  became  more  and  more  diffi- 
cult and  embarrassing.  He  dared  not  think  of  the  despair 
he  might  bring  into  the  heart  of  the  young  girl  to  whom 
he  owed  his  life.     Nevertheless,  little  by  little,  a  gentle 


MAÎTKE   COURTIN's   BATTERIES.  241 

resignation  did  succeed  the  bitter  and  violent  repulsion  he 
had  felt  at  first,  and  without  habituating  himself  to  the 
idea  of  the  sacrifice  Mary  demanded  of  him,  he  replied  by 
smiles,  which  he  tried  to  make  affectionate,  to  the  atten- 
tions which  Bertha  showered  on  him;  and  when  she  left 
his  bedside  the  sigh  that  escaped  him,  and  which  she 
interpreted  as  meant  for  her,  alone  testified  to  his  inward 
feelings. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  Courtin,  who  always  came  to  his 
room  as  soon  as  Bertha  had  disappeared  through  the  trees 
of  the  garden,  and  sitting  beside  him  talked  of  Mary, 
Michel's  tender  and  impressionable  soul  might  have  ended 
in  resigning  itself  to  the  necessities  of  the  situation,  and  in 
accepting  the  fate  they  made  for  him.  But  Courtin  talked 
to  his  young  master  so  incessantly  of  Mary,  he  showed  so 
earnest  a  wish  to  see  him  happy  according  to  his  heart's 
desire,  that  Michel,  as  the  wound  in  his  arm  healed  and 
his  strength  returned,  felt  his  inward  wound  reopening, 
and  his  gratitude  to  Bertha  disappearing  before  the  image 
of  her  sister. 

Courtin  was  doing  a  work  analogous  to  that  of  Penelope  ; 
he  undid  at  night  that  which  Bertha,  with  so  much  care, 
had  done  by  day.  When  he  brought  the  young  baron  to 
his  house  the  latter's  feebleness  precluded  all  necessity  of 
asking  pardon  for  his  former  conduct;  and  now,  having, 
as  we  have  heard  him  tell,  got  possession  of  Michel's 
secret,  he  managed,  by  protestations  of  devotion  to  his 
interests  and  by  cleverly  encouraging  the  young  man's  love 
for  Bertha's  sister,  to  worm  himself  back  entirely  into  his 
master's  confidence.  Michel  had  suffered  as  much  from 
not  being  able  to  tell  his  woes  as  from  the  woes  them- 
selves. Courtin  seemed  to  be  so  sympathizing,  he  flattered 
his  dreams  so  pleasantly,  he  seemed  to  admire  Mary  so 
truly,  that,  little  by  little,  he  led  Michel  to  betray,  if  not 
to  confess,  what  had  passed  between  him  and  the  sisters. 

Courtin  was  very  careful,  however,  not  to  assume  a  posi- 
tion hostile  to   Bertha.      He  managed,   cleverly  enough, 

VOL.    II.  —  13 


242  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

to  make  her  think  he  was  devoted  to  the  idea  of  her  mar- 
riage with  his  young  master.  When  they  met  away  from 
Michel  he  always  spoke  to  her  as  though  to  his  future 
mistress;  and  he  did  this  so  well  that  Bertha,  knowing 
nothing  of  his  antecedents,  was  constantly  talking  to 
Michel  of  the  great  devotion  of  his  farmer,  whom  she 
called  "our  good  Courtin." 

But  no  sooner  was  he  alone  with  Michel  than  he  entered, 
as  we  have  said,  into  all  the  latter's  secret  feelings.  He 
pitied  him;  and  Michel,  under  the  influence  of  that  pity, 
allowed  himself  to  tell  his  farmer  the  incidents  of  his 
relation  to  Mary.  Courtin  constantly  repeated  to  him, 
"She  loves  you;"  insinuating  that  he,  Michel,  ought  to 
force  Mary  with  a  gentle  violence,  for  which  she  would 
certainly  be  grateful,  to  follow  the  dictates  of  her  own 
heart.  He  even  went  beyond  Michel's  own  hopes  and 
assured  him  that  as  soon  as  he  was  well  and  communica- 
tions were  once  more  open,  he  could  so  arrange  matters 
that,  without  ingratitude  to  Bertha,  she  could  be  brought 
to  renounce,  of  herself,  the  projected  marriage. 

Michel's  convalescence  did  not  progress  as  rapidly  as 
Courtin  desired.  He  saw,  with  deep  anxiety,  the  days  go 
by  without  affording  any  clue  as  to  Petit-Pierre's  actual 
hiding-place  ;  and  he  restlessly  awaited  the  moment  when 
he  could  let  loose  his  young  master  on  Mary's  traces,  — 
for,  of  course,  the  reader  has  understood  that  Michel  was 
the  "  bloodhound  "  he  had  talked  of  using. 

Bertha,  relieved  of  all  anxiety  about  Michel's  wound, 
had  made,  with  Rosine,  several  trips  into  the  forest  of 
Touvois  to  see  her  father  in  his  present  refuge.  Two  or 
three  times  after  such  excursions  Courtin  had  led  the  con- 
versation to  persons  concerned  in  the  insurrection  in  whom 
the  sisters  would  probably  take  an  interest;  but  Bertha 
remained  impenetrable  ;  and  the  farmer  was  too  well  aware 
that  the  topic  was  dangerous,  and  that  the  slightest  impru- 
dence on  his  part  would  speedily  awaken  suspicion,  to  press 
such  inquiries.     Still,  as  Michel  grew  better  and  stronger, 


MAÎTRE    COURTIN'S    BATTERIES.  243 

he  urged  him,  whenever  they  were  alone  together,  to  come 
to  a  determination  ;  offering  to  take  a  letter  at  any  time  to 
Mary  and  bring  back  her  answer,  doing  his  best  to  make 
it  favorable. 

This  state  of  things  lasted  six  weeks.  At  the  end  of 
that  time  Michel  was  almost  well  ;  his  wound  had  healed 
and  his  strength  returned.  The  neighborhood  of  the  post 
which  the  general  had  established  at  La  Logerie  prevented 
the  young  man  from  showing  himself  during  the  daytime; 
but  as  soon  as  it  was  dark  he  walked  about  the  orchard 
leaning  on  Bertha's  arm.  These  evening  promenades 
annoyed  Courtin,  who,  so  long  as  Bertha  and  Michel 
talked  together  in  the  house,  could  overhear  what  they 
said  by  eavesdropping;  and  one  day  he  told  them  posi- 
tively that  their  nocturnal  rambles  must  cease.  On  being 
asked  why,  he  produced  a  judgment  by  default  which  con- 
demned Michel  de  la  Logerie  to  death. 

This  communication  produced  but  little  effect  on  Michel, 
but  Bertha  was  terror-stricken.  She  almost  flung  herself 
at  the  young  man's  feet,  and  begged  his  pardon  for  having 
enticed  him  into  this  fatal  position;  and  that  night  when 
she  left  the  farmhouse  she  was  in  a  state  of  pitiable 
agitation. 

The  next  day  she  came  early.  All  night  she  had 
dreamed  dreadful  dreams,  and  they  followed  her  waking. 
She  saw  Michel  discovered,  arrested,  shot  !  Two  hours 
earlier  than  usual  she  was  at  the  farmhouse.  Nothing  had 
happened;  nothing  seemed  to  make  that  day  more  alarm- 
ing than  other  days.  It  passed  as  usual,  —  full  of  charm 
mingled  with  anguish  for  Bertha;  full  of  melancholy 
internal  aspirations  for  Michel. 

Evening  came,  —  a  beautiful  summer's  evening.  Bertha 
was  leaning  against  a  little  window  looking  out  into  the 
orchard;  she  was  watching  the  sunset  beyond  the  great 
trees  of  the  forest  of  Machecoul,  the  tops  of  which  were 
undulating  like  waves  of  verdure.  Michel  was  sitting  on 
his  bed  breathing  in  the  soft  odors  of  the  comincr  nieht. 


244:  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

Suddenly  they  heard  the  wheels  of  a  carriage  coming  up 
the  avenue. 

The  young  man  darted  to  the  window.  Both  saw  a 
calèche  entering  the  court-yard.  Courtin  ran  to  the  car- 
riage, hat  in  hand  ;  a  head  looked  out,  —  it  was  that  of  the 
Baronne  de  la  Logerie. 

Michel,  on  seeing  his  mother,  felt  a  cold  chill  run 
through  his  veins;  it  was  evident  that  she  had  come  for 
him.  Bertha  questioned  him  with  her  eyes  to  ask  what 
she  ought  to  do.  Michel  pointed  to  a  dark  corner,  —  a 
sort  of  closet  or  recess  without  a  door,  —  where  she  might 
hide,  and  hear  all  without  being  seen  herself.  He  thought 
he  should  gather  strength  from  her  secret  presence.  Five 
minutes  later  the  stairs  creaked  under  his  mother's  step. 

Bertha  had  rushed  to  her  hiding-place  and  Michel  had 
seated  himself  near  the  window,  as  if  he  had  neither  seen 
nor  heard  anything.  The  door  opened  and  the  baroness 
appeared. 

Perhaps  she  had  come  with  the  intention  of  being  harsh 
and  stern  as  usual;  but  on  seeing  Michel  by  the  paling 
light,  pale  himself  as  the  twilight,  she  abandoned  all 
severity,  and  opening  her  arms,  cried  out  :  — 

"  Oh,  my  unhappy  child  !  have  I  found  you  ?  " 

Michel,  who  did  not  expect  this  reception,  was  greatly 
moved;  and  he  flung  himself  into  his  mother's  open  arms 
crying:  — 

"  Oh,  mother,  —  mother  !     My  good  mother  !  " 

She,  too,  was  greatly  changed;  traces  were  plainly  to 
be  seen  upon  her  face  of  incessant  tears  and  sleepless 
nights. 


MADAME    DE    LA   LOGEKIE    AND    MICHEL.  245 


XXV. 

MADAME    LA  BARONNE   DE   LA    LOGERIE,    THINKING    TO    SERVE 
HER    SON'S    INTERESTS,     SERVES    THOSE    OE    PETIT-PIERRE. 

The  baroness  sat  down,  or  rather,  fell  into  a  chair,  draw- 
ing Michel  to  his  knees  before  her,  and  taking  his  head, 
which  she  pressed  to  her  lips.  At  last  the  words  which 
she  seemed  unable  to  bring  out  came  to  her. 

"Is  it  possible  that  you  are  here  in  this  place,  not  a 
hundred  steps  away  from  the  château,  which  is  full  of 
soldiers  ?  " 

"The  nearer  I  am  to  them,  mother,"  replied  Michel, 
"the  less  they'll  look  for  me  here." 

"  But  don't  you  know  what  has  taken  place  in  Nantes  ?  " 

"  What  has  taken  place  there  ?  " 

"The  military  courts  have  passed  sentence  after  sen- 
tence." 

"That  only  signifies  to  those  they  catch,"  said  Michel, 
laughing. 

"It  signifies  to  every  one,"  said  his  mother;  "for  those 
who  are  not  taken  may  be  taken  at  any  moment." 

"Not  when  they  are  hiding  in  the  house  of  a  mayor  well- 
known  for  his  Philippist  opinions." 

"  You  are  none  the  less  —  " 

The  baroness  stopped,  as  if  her  mouth  refused  to  utter 
the  words. 

"  Go  on,  mother  !  " 

"  You  are  none  the  less  condemned  —  " 

"  Condemned  to  death  ;  I  know  that.  " 

"What!  you  know  it,  unhappy  boy,  and  you  stay  here 
quietly?" 


246  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  I  tell  you,  mother,  that  as  long  as  I  am  with  Courtin 
I  'm  quite  safe." 

"  Then  he  has  been  kind  to  you,  has  he,  that  man  ?  " 

"He  has  been  simply  a  second  providence.  He  found 
me  wounded  and  dying  of  hunger;  he  brought  me  home, 
and  since  then  he  has  fed  and  hidden  me." 

"I  must  own  I  have  distrusted  him." 

"  Then  you  are  wrong,  mother.  " 

"Maybe  so.  But  talk  of  our  own  affairs,  my  dear 
child.  No  matter  how  well  hidden  you  may  be,  you  can- 
not stay  here." 

"Why  not  ?" 

"  Because  a  mere  chance,  the  slightest  imprudence  would 
betray  you."  Michel  shook  his  head.  "You  don't  want 
me  to  die  of  terror,   do  you  ?  "  said  his  mother. 

"No  no;  I  will  listen  to  you." 

"Well,  I  shall  die  of  terror  if  you  stay  in  France." 

"But,  mother,  have  you  reflected  on  the  difficulties  of 
flight  ?  " 

"Yes;  and  I  have  surmounted  them." 

"How  so?" 

"I  have  chartered  a  small  Dutch  vessel  which  is  now 
lying  in  the  river  opposite  to  Couéron.  Get  on  board  of 
her  and  go.  God  grant  that  you  are  strong  enough  for 
the  journey."  Michel  did  not  answer.  "You  will  go  to 
England,"  continued  his  mother.  "You  will  leave  this 
cursed  land  which  drank  your  father's  blood  ;  say  you 
will,  my  son!  So  long  as  you  stay  here  I  cannot  have  an 
easy  moment;  I  fancy  at  all  hours  I  see  the  hand  of  the 
executioner  stretched  out  to  tear  you  from  my  arms."  Still 
Michel  kept  silence.  "Here,"  continued  the  baroness,  "is 
a  letter  to  the  captain  ;  and  here  too  is  an  order  for  fifty 
thousand  francs  to  your  credit  in  England  or  America. 
Wherever  you  are,  write  to  me,  so  that  I  may  follow  and 
join  you.  But  what  is  the  matter  ?  Why  don't  you  answer 
me  ?" 

The  fact  is,  Michel  received  this  proposal  with  an  insen- 


MADAME    DE    LA   LOGERIE    AND   MICHEL  24/ 

sibility  which  almost  amounted  to  stupor.  Go  away  ? 
why,  that  was  to  part  from  Mary  !  At  the  mere  idea  of 
that  separation  his  heart  was  so  wrung  that  he  fancied  he 
would  rather  face  the  death  to  which  he  was  condemned. 
Since  Courtin  had  assisted  in  reviving  his  passion,  he  had 
in  his  heart  conceived  new  hopes,  and  without  saying  a 
word  of  them  to  his  farmer,  he  thought  day  and  night  on 
the  means  of  getting  to  her.  He  could  not  endure  the 
idea  of  once  more  renouncing  her;  and  instead  of  replying 
to  his  mother  as  she  developed  her  plan,  he  was  simply 
strengthening  his  determination  to  be  Mary's  husband. 
Hence  the  silence  which,  naturally,  made  the  baroness 
uneasy. 

"Mother,"  said  Michel  at  last,  "I  do  not  answer  you 
because  I  cannot  answer  as  I  wish." 

"  How  do  you  mean,  as  you  wish  ?  " 

"Listen  to  me,  mother,"  said  the  young  man,  with  a 
firmness  of  which  at  any  other  time  she  would  have 
thought  him,  and  perhaps  he  might  have  thought  himself, 
incapable. 

"You  don't  refuse  to  go,  I  hope  ?  " 

"I  don't  refuse  to  go,"  said  Michel,  "but  I  put  condi- 
tions to  my  going." 

"Conditions  where  it  concerns  your  life,  your  safety? 
Conditions  before  you  consent  to  relieve  your  mother's 
agony  ? " 

"Mother,"  said  Michel,  "since  we  last  saw  each  other  I 
have  suffered  much,  and  consequently  I  have  learned 
much.  I  have  learned,  above  all,  that  there  are  moments 
which  decide  the  whole  future  happiness  or  misery  of  our 
lives.     I  am  now  in  one  of  those  moments,  mother." 

"  And  you  mean  to  decide  for  my  misery  ?  " 

"No;  I  shall  speak  to  you  as  a  man,  that  is  all.  Do  not 
be  surprised  at  that;  I  was  thrown,  a  child,  into  the  midst 
of  these  events,  and  I  have  come  out  of  them  a  man.  T 
know  the  duties  I  owe  my  mother;  those  duties  are 
respect,   tenderness,  gratitude,  —  and  those  duties  I  will 


248  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

never  evade.  But  in  passing  from  youth  to  manhood, 
mother,  horizons  open  and  broaden  the  farther  we  go; 
there  we  find  duties,  succeeding  those  of  youth,  not  exclu- 
sively to  our  family,  but  also  to  society.  When  a  man 
reaches  that  stage  in  his  life,  though  he  still  loves  his 
mother,  he  must  inevitably  love  another  woman,  who  will 
be  to  him  the  mother  of  his  children." 

"  Ah  !  "  exclaimed  the  baroness,  starting  back  from  her 
son  with  an  impulse  that  was  stronger  than  her  will. 

"Yes,  mother,"  said  the  young  man,  rising,  "I  have 
given  that  love;  another  love  has  replied  to  mine;  our 
lives  are  indissolubly  united;  if  I  go,  I  will  not  go  alone." 

"  You  will  go  with  your  mistress  ?  " 

"I  will  go  with  my  wife,  mother." 

"  Do  you  suppose  that  I  shall  give  my  consent  to  that 
marriage  ?  " 

"You  are  free  not  to  give  your  consent,  mother,  but  I 
am  free  not  to  leave  this  place." 

"Oh,  wretched  boy!"  cried  the  baroness;  "is  this  my 
reward  for  twenty  years  of  care,  and  tenderness,  and 
love  ?  " 

"That  reward,  mother,"  said  Michel,  his  firmness  in- 
creased by  the  knowledge  that  another  ear  was  listening 
to  his  words,  "you  have  in  the  respect  I  bear  you,  and 
the  devotion  of  which  I  will  give  you  proofs  on  every 
occasion.  But  true  maternal  love  is  not  a  usurer;  it  does 
not  say,  'I  will  be  twenty  years  thy  mother  in  order  to  be 
thy  tyrant;'  it  does  not  say,  'I  will  give  thee  life,  youth, 
strength,  intelligence,  in  order  that  all  those  powers  shall 
be  obedient  to  my  will.'  No,  mother,  true  maternal  love 
says:  'While  thou  wert  feeble  I  supported  thee;  while 
thou  wert  ignorant  I  taught  thee;  while  thou  wert  blind 
I  led  thee.  To-day  thou  art  strong  and  capable;  make  thy 
future  life,  not  according  to  my  will,  but  thine  own;  choose 
one  among  the  many  paths  before  thee,  and  wherever  it 
may  lead,  love,  bless,  reverence  the  mother  who  made  and 
trained  thee  to  be  strong  ;  '  that  is  the  power  of  a  mother 


MADAME    DE   LA   LOGERIE   AND    MICHEL.  249 

over  her  son,  as  I  see  it;  that  is  the  respect  and  the  duty 
which  he  owes  to  her." 

The  baroness  was  speechless;  she  would  sooner  have 
expected  the  skies  to  fall  than  to  hear  such  firm  and  argu- 
mentative language  from  her  son.  She  looked  at  him  in 
stupefaction. 

Proudly  satisfied  with  himself,  Michel  looked  at  her 
calmly,  with  a  smile  upon  his  lips. 

"So,"  she  said,  "nothing  will  induce  you  to  give  up  this 
folly?" 

"Say  rather  that  nothing  will  induce  me  to  break  my 
word." 

"Oh  !  "  cried  the  baroness,  pressing  her  hands  upon  her 
eyes,  "unhappy  mother  that  I  am  !  " 

Michel  knelt  beside  her. 

"I  say  to  you:  blessed  mother  you  will  be  on  the  day 
you  make  the  happiness  of  your  son  !  " 

"  What  is  there  so  seductive  about  those  wolves  ?  "  cried 
the  baroness. 

"By  whatever  name  you  call  the  woman  I  love,"  said 
Michel,  "  I  shall  reply  to  you  :  she  has  every  quality  that 
a  man  should  seek  in  a  wife  ;  and  it  is  not  for  you  and  me, 
mother,  who  have  suffered  so  much  from  calumny,  to  seize, 
as  readily  as  you  have  done,  on  the  calumnies  told  of 
others." 

"No,  no,  no  !  "  cried  the  baroness,  "never  will  I  consent 
to  such  a  marriage  !  " 

"In  that  case,  mother,"  said  Michel,  "take  back  those 
cheques  and  the  letter  to  the  captain  of  the  vessel;  they 
are  useless  to  me,  for  I  will  not  leave  this  place." 

"  What  else  can  you  do,  you  miserable  boy  ?  " 

"Oh,  that's  simple  enough.  I'd  rather  die  than  live 
separated  from  her  I  love.  I  am  cured.  I  am  able  to 
shoulder  a  musket.  The  remains  of  the  insurrectionary 
army  are  collected  in  the  forest  of  Touvois  under  command 
of  the  Marquis  de  Souday.  I  will  join  them,  and  fight 
with  them,  and  get  myself  killed  at  the  first  chance.     This 


250  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

is  the  second  time  death  has  missed  me,"  he  added  with  a 
pallid  smile.  "The  third  time  his  aim  may  be  true  and 
his  hand  steady." 

The  young  man  laid  the  letters  and  cheques  on  his 
mother's  knees.  In  his  tones  and  gestures  there  was  such 
resolution  and  firmness  that  his  mother  saw  that  she  cher- 
ished in  vain  the  hope  of  changing  him.  In  presence  of 
that  conviction  her  strength  gave  way. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "be  it  according  to  your  will,  and 
may  God  forget  that  you  have  forced  your  mother  to  yield 
to  you." 

"  God  will  forget  it,  mother  ;  and  when  you  see  the  hap- 
piness of  your  son  you  will  forget  it  yourself.  " 

The  baroness  shook  her  head. 

"Go,"  she  said,  "marry,  far  away  from  me,  a  stranger 
I  do  not  know  and  have  never  seen." 

"I  shall  marry,  I  hope,  a  woman  whom  you  will  know 
and  appreciate,  mother;  and  that  great  day  of  my  happi- 
ness will  be  blessed  by  your  sanction.  You  have  offered 
to  join  me  wherever  I  go;  wherever  that  may  be  I  shall 
expect  you,   mother." 

The  baroness  rose  and  made  a  few  steps  toward  the  door. 

"Going  without  a  word  of  farewell,  without  a  kiss, 
mother  ?     Are  you  not  afraid  it  may  bring  me  evil  ?  " 

"  My  unhappy  boy,  come  to  my  arms,  to  my  heart  !  " 

And  she  said  the  words  with  that  maternal  cry  which, 
sooner  or  later,  must  come  from  a  mother's  heart.  Michel 
pressed  her  tenderly  to  his  breast. 

"  When  will  you  go,  my  child  ?  "  she  said. 

"That  must  depend  on  her,  mother." 

"  As  soon  as  possible,  will  you  not  ?  " 

"To-night,  I  hope." 

"You  will  find  a  peasant's  dress  below  in  the  carriage. 
Disguise  yourself  as  best  you  can.  It  is  twenty-four  miles 
from  here  to  Couéron.  You  could  get  there  by  five  in  the 
morning.  Don't  forget  the  vessel's  name, — the  'Jeune 
Charles.  '  " 


MADAME    DE    LA    LOGERIE    AND    MICHEL.  1^51 

"Don't  be  anxious,  mother.  The  moment  I  know  my 
end  is  happiness  I  shall  take  every  precaution  to  reach  it." 

"As  for  me,  I  shall  go  back  to  Paris  and  use  all  my 
influence  to  get  that  fatal  sentence  revoked.  But  you  —  i 
entreat  you,  and  I  repeat  it  —  take  care  of  your  life,  and 
remember  that  my  life  is  wrapped  up  in  yours." 

Mother  and  son  again  kissed  each  other,  and  Michel  took 
his  mother  to  the  door.  Courtin,  as  a  faithful  servitor, 
was  keeping  watch  below.  Madame  de  la  Logerie  begged 
him  to  accompany  her  to  the  chateau. 

When  Michel,  after  locking  the  door,  turned  round  he 
saw  Bertha,  with  a  smile  of  happiness  on  her  lips,  and  a 
halo  of  love  about  her  head.  She  was  waiting  the  moment 
to  throw  herself  into  his  arms.  Michel  received  her  in 
them;  and  if  the  little  room  had  not  been  dark  she  must 
have  seen  the  embarrassment  on  the  young  baron's  face. 

"And  now,"  she  said,  "nothing  can  part  us;  we  have  my 
father's  consent,  and  noAv  your  mother's." 

Michel  was  silent. 

"  Shall  we  start  to-night  ?  " 

Still  Michel  said  nothing. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "why  don't  you  answer  me  ?" 

"Because  nothing  is  less  sure  than  our  departure,"  he 
replied. 
.  "But  you  promised  your  mother  to  go  to-night." 

"I  told  my  mother  it  depended  on  Aer." 

"  That  is,  on  me,  "  said  Bertha. 

"What!"  exclaimed  Michel,  "would  Bertha,  true  royal- 
ist and  so  devoted  to  the  cause,  leave  France  without 
thinking  of  those  she  leaves  behind  her  ?  " 

"  What  can  you  mean  ?  "  asked  Bertha. 

"I  mean  something  grander  and  more  useful  to  the 
country  than  my  own  escape,  my  personal  safety,"  said 
the  young  man. 

Bertha  looked  at  him  in  astonishment. 

"I  mean  the  escape  and  safety  of  Madame,"  added 
Michel. 


252  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

Bertha  gave  a  cry;  she  began  to  understand. 

"  Ah  !  "  she  ejaculated. 

"  That  vessel  my  mother  has  chartered  for  me  can  take 
from  France  not  only  you  and  me,  but  the  princess,  your 
father,  and,"  he  added  in  a  lower  voice,  "your  sister." 

"Oh,  Michel,  Michel  !"  cried  the  young  girl,  "forgive 
me  for  not  thinking  of  that  !  Just  now  I  loved  you;  now 
I  admire  you  !  Yes,  yes,  you  are  right;  Providence  itself 
inspired  your  mother;  yes,  I  will  forget  all  the  hard  and 
cruel  things  she  said  of  me,  for  I  see  in  her  an  instrument 
of  God  sent  to  our  succor  to  save  us  all.  Oh,  my  friend, 
how  good  you  are  !  —  more  than  that,  you  are  grand  for 
having  thought  of  it." 

The  young  man  stammered  unintelligible  words. 

"Ah  !"  continued  Bertha,  in  her  enthusiasm,  "I  knew 
you  were  the  bravest  and  most  loyal  of  men;  but  to-day 
you  have  gone  beyond  my  hopes  and  expectations.  Poor 
child  !  wounded,  condemned  to  death,  he  thinks  of  others 
before  he  thinks  of  himself  !  Ah,  friend,  I  was  happy, 
now  I  am  proud  in  my  love  !  " 

If  the  room  had  been  lighted  Bertha  must  have  seen  the 
flush  on  Michel's  cheek;  he  knew  what  his  disinterested- 
ness really  was.  It  is  true  that  after  obtaining  his 
mother's  consent  to  marry  the  woman  he  loved,  Michel 
had  really  dreamed  of  something  else,  —  namely,  the  idea 
of  rendering  to  Petit-Pierre  the  greatest  service  the  most 
devoted  follower  could  do  for  her  at  that  moment,  and 
afterward  avow  all  and  ask  her,  as  a  reward  for  that  ser- 
vice, to  procure  for  him  Mary's  hand.  We  can  readily 
imagine  his  shame  and  confusion  of  face  in  Bertha's  pres- 
ence, and  why,  to  all  these  demonstrations  of  the  young 
girl  the  baron,  cold  in  spite  of  himself,  replied  merely  :  — 

"Now  that  all  is  arranged  for  us,  Bertha,  we  have  no 
time  to  lose." 

"No,"  she  said,  "you  are  right.  Give  your  orders. 
Now  that  I  recognize  the  superiority  not  only  of  your 
heart  but  of  your  mind,  I  am  ready  to  obey." 


MADAME  DE  LA  LOGERIE  AND  MICHEL.      253 

"Well,"  said  Michel,  "we  must  part  here." 

"Why  so  ?  "  asked  Bertha. 

"Because  you  must  go  to  the  forest  of  Touvois  and 
notify  your  father  of  what  has  happened,  and  bring  him 
away  with  you.  From  there  you  must  get  to  the  bay  of 
Bourgneuf,  where  the  'Jeune  Charles  '  shall  stop  and  pick 
you  up.     I  shall  go  to  Nantes  and  tell  the  duchess." 

"  You,  in  Nantes  !  Do  you  forget  that  you  are  con- 
demned to  death  and  that  the  authorities  are  watching 
for  you  ?  It  is  I  who  must  go  to  Nantes  and  you  to 
Touvois." 

"But  the  'Jeune  Charles  '  expects  me,  Bertha,  and  in  all 
probability  the  captain  would  obey  no  one  but  me;  seeing 
a  woman  in  place  of  a  man  he  might  suspect  some  trap  and 
throw  us  into  inextricable  difficulties." 

"But  just  reflect  on  the  dangers  you  run  in  Nantes." 

"  On  the  contrary,  it  may  be,  if  you  think  of  it,  Bertha, 
the  very  place  where  I  should  run  the  least.  They  will 
never  suppose  that,  being  condemned  to  death  in  Nantes, 
I  should  enter  the  town  which  condemned  me.  You  know 
very  well  that  there  are  times  when  the  greatest  boldness 
is  the  greatest  safety.  This  is  one  of  those  times;  and 
you  must  let  me  do  as  I  choose." 

"I  told  you  I  would  obey  you,  Michel;  I  obey." 

And  the  proud  and  beautiful  young  girl,  submissive  as  a 
child,  awaited  the  orders  of  the  man  who,  thanks  to  an 
appearance  of  devotion,  had  just  acquired  almost  gigantic 
proportions  in  her  eyes. 

Nothing  was  simpler  than  the  decision  they  had  made 
and  its  mode  of  execution.  Bertha  gave  Michel  the  address 
of  the  duchess  in  Nantes  and  the  different  passwords  by 
which  he  could  gain  admittance  to  her.  She  herself, 
dressed  in  Kosine's  clothes,  was  to  reach  the  forest  of 
Touvois.  Michel,  of  course,  was  to  wear  the  peasant's  cos- 
tume brought  to  him  by  his  mother.  If  nothing  occurred 
to  interfere  with  these  arrangements  the  "Jeune  Charles" 
would  be  able  to  sail  at  five  o'clock  on  the  following  morn- 


254  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

ing,  carrying  Petit-Pierre  away  from  France,  and  with  her 
the  last  vestiges  of  civil  war. 

Ten  minutes  later  Michel  was  astride  of  Courtin's  pony, 
saddled  and  bridled  by  himself,  and  taking  leave,  by  a 
wave  of  his  hand,  of  Bertha,  who  returned  to  the  Tinguy 
cottage,  from  which  she  intended  to  start  immediately  by 
a  cross-road  toward  the  Touvois  forest. 


Cathedral  of  Nantes. 


MARCHES   AND   COUNTER-MARCHES.  255 


XXVI. 

MARCHES    AND    COUNTER-MARCHES. 

In  spite  of  the  adornment  of  wind-galls  and  spavin,  with 
which  age  and  toil  had  favored  Maître  Courtin's  pony,  that 
brave  beast  showed  energy  enough  in  the  amble  which 
served  him  for  a  trot  to  bring  Michel  into  Nantes  before 
nine  o'clock  at  night.  His  first  stopping-place  was  to  be 
the  tavern  of  the  Point  du  Jour. 

He  had  hardly  crossed  the  pont  Bousseau  before  he 
began  to  look  about  him  for  the  said  tavern.  Recognizing 
its  sign,  —  a  star  lengthened  by  a  ray  of  the  most  beautiful 
yellow  ochre  painter  ever  used,  —  he  stopped  his  pony,  or 
rather  the  pony  of  Maître  Courtin,  before  a  wooden  trough 
where  the  horses  of  the  wagoners,  who  wanted  to  halt 
without  unharnessing,  were  watered. 

No  one  appeared  at  the  door  of  the  inn.  Forgetting  the 
humble  clothes  which  he  wore,  and  remembering  only  the 
alacrity  with  which  the  servants  at  La  Logerie  welcomed 
his  arrival,  Michel  rapped  impatiently  on  the  trough  with 
the  heavy  stick  he  held  in  his  hand.  At  the  sound  a  man 
in  bis  shirt-sleeves  came  out  of  the  court-yard  and  advanced 
to  Michel;  he  wore  on  his  head  a  blue  cotton  cap  pulled 
down  to  his  eyes.  Michel  fancied  that  what  he  saw  of  the 
face  was  not  unknown  to  him. 

"The  devil  !  "  cried  the  man  in  a  grumbling  tone;  "are 
you  too  much  of  a  lord,  my  young  gars,  to  take  your  horse 
to  the  stable  yourself  ?  However,  no  matter;  you  shall  be 
served  as  well  as  any." 

"Serve  me  as  you  please,  but  answer  a  question." 

"Ask  it,"  said  the  man,  folding  his  arms. 


256  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

"I  want  to  see  Père  Eustache,"  added  Michel,  sinking 
his  voice. 

Low  as  the  tone  was,  the  man  showed  signs  of  annoy- 
ance; he  looked  furtively  about  him,  and  though  there 
was  no  one  to  be  seen  but  a  few  children  who  were  gazing 
with  their  hands  behind  their  backs  in  naïve  curiosity  at 
the  new-comer,  he  took  the  horse  hastily  by  the  bridle  and 
led  him  into  the  court -yard. 

"I  told  you  I  wanted  to  see  Fère  Eustache,"  said  Michel, 
getting  off  the  pony  as  soon  as  the  man  in  the  blue  cap  had 
led  him  to  the  shed  which  served  as  stable  to  the  hôtel 
Point  du  Jour. 

"I  know  that,"  said  the  latter.  "I  heard  it,  confound 
you;  but  I  don't  keep  your  Père  Eustache  in  my  oat-bin. 
Besides,  before  I  tell  you  where  to  find  him  I  'd  like  to 
know  where  you  come  from." 

"The  South." 

"  Where  are  you  going  ?  " 

"To  Rosny." 

"  Very  good  ;  then  you  must  go  to  the  church  of  Saint- 
Sauveur,  and  there  you  will  find  the  man  you  want.  Go; 
and  try  not  to  speak  so  loud,  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie,  when 
you  talk  in  the  street  —  if  you  want  to  gain  the  object  of 
your  journey." 

"Ah,  ha!"  cried  Michel,  somewhat  astonished;  "so 
you  know  me  ?  " 

"I  should  think  so  !  "  said  the  man. 

"I  must  have  that  horse  taken  back  to  its  home." 

"It  shall  be  done." 

Michel  put  a  louis  into  the  man's  hand,  who  seemed 
delighted  with  the  fee  and  made  him  many  offers  of  ser- 
vice; then  he  boldly  went  out  into  the  town.  When  he 
reached  the  church  of  Saint-Sauveur  the  sexton  was  in  the 
act  of  shutting  the  gates.  The  lesson  the  young  baron  had 
just  received  at  the  gate  of  the  inn  bore  fruits;  Michel 
waited  cautiously  and  looked  about  him  before  putting  any 
questions. 


MARCHES   AND    COUNTER-MARCHES.  257 

Four  or  five  beggars,  before  leaving  the  church  porch, 
where  they  had  asked  alms  all  day  of  the  faithful,  were 
kneeling  beneath  the  organ  to  say  their  evening  prayer. 
Xo  doubt  Père  Eustache  was  among  them  ;  for  besides  two 
or  three  women  with  their  cotton  capes,  patched  with 
various  colors,  thrown  over  their  heads,  there  were  three 
male  beggars,  each  with  a  holy-water  sprinkler  in  his 
hand.  Either  of  the  three  might  be  the  man  Michel  was 
in  search  of;  luckily  he  knew  the  sign  of  recognition.  He 
took  the  branch  of  holly  that  was  fastened  in  his  hat, 
which  Bertha  had  told  him  was  the  sign  by  which  l'ère 
Eustache  would  know  him,  and  let  it  drop  before  the  door. 
Two  of  the  beggars  passed  without  taking  the  least  notice 
of  it;  the  third,  who  was  a  little  old  man,  thin  and  weakly, 
whose  enormous  nose  projected  boldly  beyond  a  black  silk 
cap,  stopped  when  he  saw  the  holly  on  the  pavement, 
picked  it  up,  and  looked  about  him  uneasily.  Michel 
issued  from  behind  the  pillar  which  concealed  him. 

Père  Eustache  (for  it  was  he)  cast  a  sidelong  look  at 
the  young  man;  then,  without  a  word,  he  walked  toward 
the  cloister.  Michel  understood  that  the  holly  was  not  a 
sufficient  sign  to  the  distrustful  giver  of  holy  water  ;  after 
following  for  about  ten  yards,  he  hastened  his  steps  and 
accosted  him,   saying  :  — 

"I  am  from  the  South." 

The  beggar  stopped. 

"  Where  are  you  going  ?  "  he  asked. 

"To  Rosny,"  replied  Michel. 

The  beggar  turned  round  and  retraced  his  steps;  this 
time  he  went  toward  the  town.  A  look  from  a  corner  of 
his  eye  told  Michel  it  was  all  right.  The  latter  then  let 
his  guide  pass  him  and  followed  him  at  a  distance  of  five 
or  six  paces.  They  returned  past  the  portal  of  the  church, 
and  soon  after,  having  entered  a  dark  and  narrow  alley, 
the  beggar  stopped  for  a  few  seconds  before  a  low  door 
placed  in  the  wall  of  a  garden;  then  he  continued  his  wa\ . 

Michel  was  about  to  follow  him;  but  the  beggai  made 

VOL.    II.  —  17 


258  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

him  a  sign  as  if  to  point  out  the  little  door,  and  rapidly 
disappeared.  The  young  man  then  saw  that  Père  Eustache 
had  slipped  the  holly  branch  he  had  picked  up  through  the 
iron  ring  that  served  as  a  knocker. 

So  this  was  the  end  of  his  journey.  He  raised  the 
knocker  and  let  it  fall.  At  the  sound  a  small  wicket  made 
in  the  door  itself  opened  and  a  man's  voice  was  heard  ask- 
ing what  was  wanted.  Michel  repeated  the  passwords, 
and  he  was  shown  into  a  room  on  the  ground-floor,  where 
a  gentleman,  whom  he  recognized  as  having  seen  at  the 
château  de  Souday  on  the  evening  when  General  Dermon- 
court  ate  the  supper  prepared  for  Petit-Pierre,  and  seen 
again,  gun  in  hand,  before  the  fight  at  Chêne,  was  quietly 
reading  a  newspaper,  sitting  before  a  large  fire  with  his 
feet  on  the  fender,  wrapped  in  his  dressing-gown. 

In  spite  of  his  very  pacific  appearance  and  occupation, 
a  pair  of  pistols  lay  within  reach  of  his  hand  on  a  table 
where  there  'were  also,  laid  out  for  use,  pens,  ink,  and 
paper.  The  gentleman  recognized  Michel  at  once  and  rose 
to  receive  him. 

"I  think  I  have  seen  you  in  our  ranks,  monsieur,"  he 
said. 

"Yes,  monsieur,"  replied  Michel,  "the  evening  before 
the  fight  at  Chêne." 

"  And  the  day  of  the  fight  ?  "  asked  he  of  the  dressing- 
gown,  smiling. 

"I  was  fighting  at  La  Pénissière,  where  I  was  wounded." 

The  gentleman  bowed. 

"  Will  you  have  the  goodness  to  tell  me  your  name  ?  " 
he  said. 

Michel  told  his  name;  the  gentleman  in  the  dressing- 
gown  consulted  a  pocket-book,  gave  signs  of  satisfaction, 
and  turning  to  the  young  man  asked:  — 

"  Will  you  now  tell  me  what  has  brought  you  ?  " 

"The  wish  to  see  Petit-Pierre,  and  do  her  a  great 
service." 

"Pardon  me,  monsieur;  but  no  one  can  see  the  person  of 


MARCHES   AND    COUNTER-MARCHES.  259 

whom  you  speak,  at  least  not  so  easily.  You  are  indeed 
one  of  us;  I  know  that  you  may  be  relied  on  so  far;  but 
you  will  readily  understand  that  all  going  and  coming 
about  a  retreat  which  has  hitherto  been  able  to  keep  its 
secret  successfully,  would  soon  attract  the  attention  of  the 
police.  Have  the  kindness,  therefore,  to  tell  me  your 
plans,  and  I  will  see  that  you  receive  an  answer." 

Michel  then  related  what  had  passed  between  himself 
and  his  mother;  how  she  had  chartered  a  vessel  for  his 
escape,  and  how  the  idea  had  occurred  to  him  that  it 
might  be  used  to  put  Petit-Pierre  in  safety.  The  man  in 
the  dressing-gown  listened  with  ever-increasing  interest, 
and  as  soon  as  the  young  baron  had  given  full  information 
he  exclaimed  :  — 

"It  really  seems  as  though  Providence  had  sent  you. 
It  is  impossible  —  no  matter  what  precautions  we  take  to 
conceal  the  place  where  Petit-Pierre  is  hidden  —  it  is 
really  impossible  to  escape  the  police  investigations  much 
longer.  For  the  good  of  the  cause,  for  Petit-Pierre's  own 
sake  and  for  ours,  it  is  much  better  that  she  should  leave 
the  country  ;  and  as  the  difficulty  of  chartering  a  vessel  is 
thus  removed,  I  will  at  once  see  Petit-Pierre,  explain  the 
circumstances,  and  receive  her  orders." 

"  Shall  I  go  with  you  ?  "  asked  Michel. 

"No;  your  peasant's  dress  beside  me  would  immediately 
attract  the  attention  of  the  police  spies,  by  whom  we  are 
surrounded.     What  inn  are  you  stopping  at  ?  " 

"The  Point  du  Jour." 

"That  is  where  Joseph  Picaut  is  hostler;  there  is  noth- 
ing to  fear  there." 

"  Ah  !  "  exclaimed  Michel,  "  I  knew  his  face  was  not 
unknown  to  me;  but  I  thought  he  lived  in  the  open 
country  between  the  river  Boulogne  and  the  forest  of 
Machecoul  !  " 

"You  were  right;  he  is  only  a  tavern  hostler  as  occasion 
demands.  Wait  there  for  me.  I  will  go  to  you  in  two 
hours  from  now,  — either  alone,  or  accompanied  by  Petit- 


260  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Pierre,  — alone,  if  Petit-Pierre  rejects  your  proposal  ;  with 
her,  if  she  accepts." 

"  Are  you  perfectly  sure  of  that  man  Picaut  ?  "  asked 
Michel. 

"  Yes,  as  we  are  of  ourselves.  If  there  is  any  fault  to 
find  with  him  it  is  that  he  is  too  zealous.  Eemember  that 
since  Petit-Pierre  has  been  in  La  Vendée  more  than  six 
hundred  peasants  have  known  at  different  times  of  her 
various  hiding-places  ;  and  the  noblest  claim  of  those  poor 
people  to  honor,  is  that  not  one,  poor  as  he  was,  thought 
of  betraying  her.  Let  Joseph  know  that  you  expect  friends, 
and  that  he  must  be  on  the  watch  for  them.  If  you  merely 
say  to  him  the  words,  'Pue  du  Château,  No.  3,'  you  will 
obtain  from  him,  and  all  connected  with  the  inn,  the  most 
absolute  and  also  the  most  passive  obedience." 

"  Have  you  any  other  advice  to  give  me  ?  " 

"Perhaps  it  may  be  prudent  for  the  persons  who  will 
accompany  Petit-Pierre  to  leave  the  house  where  she  is 
hidden  singly,  and  go  singly  to  the  tavern  of  the  Point 
du  Jour.  Ask  them  to  give  you  a  room  with  a  window 
looking  on  the  quay;  have  no  light  in  your  room,  but  keep 
the  window  open." 

"You  have  forgotten  nothing  ?  " 

"  Nothing.  Adieu,  monsieur,  or  rather,  au  revoir  !  If 
we  succeed  in  reaching  your  vessel  safely  you  will  have 
done  an  immense  service  to  the  cause.  As  for  me,  I  am 
in  continual  fear.  They  say  enormous  sums  have  been 
offered  for  the  betrayal  of  the  princess,  and  I  tremble  lest 
some  one  may  yet  be  tempted  to  sacrifice  her." 

Michel  was  ushered  out;  but  instead  of  taking  him  by 
the  door  through  which  he  had  entered,  they  took  him 
through  an  entrance  which  opeued  on  another  street. 
Thence  he  rapidly  crossed  the  town  and  returned  to  the 
quay.  When  he  reached  the  tavern  of  the  Point  du 
Jour  he  found  that  Joseph  Picaut  had  engaged  a  boy  to 
take  Courtin's  pony  back  to  the  farmhouse  as  Michel  had 
requested. 


MARCHES  AND  COUNTER-MARCHES.         261 

On  entering  the  stable  Michel  made  Joseph  a  sign,  which 
the  latter  understood  perfectly;  he  sent  the  boy  away, 
postponing  the  return  of  the  horse  till  the  next  day. 

"You  said  you  knew  me,"  remarked  Michel  as  soon  as 
they  were  alone. 

"I  did  more,  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie;  I  called  you  by 
your  name." 

"Well,  I  'in  not  sorry  to  know  that  we  have  equal  advan- 
tages in  that  respect.  I  know  your  name;  it  is  Joseph 
Picaut." 

"I  don't  say  it  is  n't,"  said  the  peasant,  with  a  sly  look. 

"Are  you  to  be  trusted,  Joseph  ?  " 

"That  depends  on  who  trusts  me, —  blues  and  reds,  no; 
whites,  yes." 

"Then  you  are  white  ? " 

Picaut  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"If  I  were  not,  should  I  be  here, —  I  who  am  condemned 
to  death  as  you  are?  That's  so;  they  have  done  me  the 
honor  of  a  sentence  by  default.  Yes,  you  and  I  are  equal 
before  the  law  now." 

"  And  you  are  here  —  " 

"As  hostler,  neither  more  nor  less." 

"Then  take  me  to  the  master  of  the  inn." 

Picaut  woke  up  the  inn-keeper,  who  was  in  bed.  The 
latter  received  Michel  with  some  distrust;  and  the  young 
man,  feeling  there  was  no  time  to  lose,  decided  on  striking 
the  great  blow,  and  said  deliberately  the  five  words  :  — 

"Pvue  du  Chateau,  No.  3." 

The  words  were  scarcely  heard  by  the  inn-keeper  before 
his  distrust  disappeared  and  his  whole  manner  changed. 
From  that  moment  he  and  his  house  were  at  Michel's  dis- 
posal.    It  was  now  Michel's  turn  to  make  inquiries. 

"  Have  you  other  travellers  in  the  house  ?  " 

"Only  one." 

"Of  what  kind?" 

"The  very  worst, —  a  man  to  fear." 

"  You  know  him,  then  ?  " 


262  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"It  is  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie,  Courtin,  a  vile  cur." 

"  Courtin  !  "  exclaimed  Michel.  "  Courtin  here  !  Are 
you  sure  ?  " 

"I  don't  know  him;  but  Picaut  says  it  is  he." 

"  When  did  he  get  here  ?  " 

"  About  fifteen  minutes  ago." 

"Where  is  he  ?" 

"He  has  just  gone  out.  He  got  something  to  eat  and 
went  off  immediately,  telling  me  he  should  not  be  in  till 
late,  —  not  before  two  in  the  morning.  He  said  he  had 
business  in  Nantes." 

"Does  he  know  you  knew  him?  " 

"I  think  not;  unless  he  recognized  Joseph  Picaut  just 
as  Picaut  recognized  him.  But  I  doubt  if  he  did,  for  he 
stood  in  the  light  and  Joseph  kept  in  the  shade." 

Michel  reflected  a  moment. 

"I  don't  think  Courtin  is  as  bad  as  you  suppose  him  to 
be,"  he  said;  "but  never  mind,  it  is  as  well  to  distrust 
him,  and  on  no  account  must  he  know  of  my  presence  in 
your  inn." 

Picaut,  who  had  hitherto  been  standing  on  the  thresh- 
old of  the  door,  here  came  forward  and  joined  in  the 
conversation. 

"  Oh  !  "  he  said,  "  if  he  is  likely  to  trouble  you,  say  so  ; 
we  can  settle  him  so  that  he  shall  know  nothing,  or  if  he 
does  know  anything  he  shall  be  made  to  hold  his  tongue. 
I  have  old  scores  against  him  which  I  've  long  wanted  a 
pretext  to  —  " 

"No,  no  !  "  cried  Michel,  hastily,  "Courtin  is  my  farmer. 
I  am  under  obligations  to  him  which  make  me  anxious  that 
no  harm  shall  happen  to  him;  besides,"  he  hastened  to 
add,  seeing  the  frown  on  Picaut's  brow,  "he  is  not  what 
you  think  he  is." 

Joseph  Picaut  shook  his  head;  but  Michel  did  not  notice 
the  gesture. 

"Don't  trouble  yourself,"  said  the  inn-keeper.  "If  he 
comes  in  I  '11  look  after  him." 


MARCHES    AND   COUNTER-MARCHES.  2G3 

"Very  good.  As  for  you,  Joseph,  take  the  horse  on 
which  I  came.  I  want  you  to  do  an  errand.  By  the  bye, 
Courtin  must  not  see  that  horse  in  the  stable;  he  would 
certainly  recognize  it,  inasmuch  as  it  is  his  own  beast." 

"What  next  ?" 

"You  know  the  river,  don't  you  ?  " 

"There's  not  a  corner  of  the  left  bank  I've  not  shot 
over.     I  know  less  of  the  right." 

"That's  all  right;  it  is  the  left  bank  you'll  have  to 
follow." 

"Follow  where  ?" 

"To  Couéron.  Opposite  to  the  second  island,  between 
the  two  old  wrecks,  you  will  see  a  vessel  called  the  'Jeune 
Charles.'  Though  at  anchor  its  foretopsail  will  be  set; 
you  '11  know  it  by  that." 

"Trust  me  to  know  it." 

"Take  a  boat  and  row  out  to  her.  They  '11  call  to  you, 
'Who's  there?'  Answer,  'Belle-Isle  en  Mer.'  Then 
they  '11  let  you  go  aboard.  You  '11  give  the  captain  this 
handkerchief,  just  as  it  is,  —  that  is  to  say,  knotted  at 
three  corners,  —  and  you  will  tell  him  to  be  all  ready  to 
weigh  anchor  at  one  o'clock  to-night." 

"  Is  that  all  ?  " 

"  Yes  —  or  rather,  no,  it  is  not  all.  If  I  am  satisfied 
with  you,  Picaut,  you  shall  have  five  pieces  of  gold  such 
as  the  one  I  gave  you  to-night." 

"Well,  well,"  said  Joseph  Picaut,  "leaving  out  the 
chance  of  being  hung,  it  is  not  such  a  bad  business;  and 
if  I  can  only  get  a  shot  now  and  then  at  the  Blues,  or 
revenge  myself  on  Courtin,  I  sha'n't  regret  Maître  Jacques 
and  his  burrows.     What  next  ?  " 

"  How  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  Why,  after  I  have  done  the  errand  ?  " 

"Then  you  will  hide  somewhere  on  the  bank  of  the 
river,  and  wait  for  us;  whistle  to  let  us  know  where  you 
are.  If  all  goes  well  imitate  a  cuckoo;  if  on  the  con- 
trary you  see  anything  that  ought  to  make  us  uneasy,  give 
the  owl's  cry." 


264  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Ha!  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie,"  said  Joseph,  "I  see 
you  've  been  well  trained.  All  you  've  ordered  is  clear, 
and  seems  to  me  well  arranged.  It  is  a  pity,  though,  you 
haven't  a  better  horse  to  put  between  my  legs;  otherwise 
the  matter  could  be  quickly  done." 

Joseph  Picaut  departed  on  his  mission.  The  inn-keeper 
then  took  Michel  to  a  poor-looking  room  on  the  first  floor, 
which  served  as  an  annex  to  the  dining-room,  and  had  two 
windows  opening  on  the  main-road;  then  he  put  himself 
on  the  watch  for  Courtin. 

Michel  opened  one  of  the  windows  as  agreed  upon  with 
the  gentleman  in  the  dressing-gown;  after  which  he  sat 
down  on  a  stool,  placing  himself  so  that  his  head  could  not 
be  seen  from  the  road  he  was  watching. 


mighel's  love  affairs  take  a  happier  turn.     2G5 


XXVII. 
michel's  love  affairs  seem  to  be  taking  a  happier 

TURN. 

Michel,  under  his  apparent  composure,  was  really  in  a 
state  of  extreme  anxiety.  He  was  about  to  meet  Mary; 
and,  at  the  mere  idea  his  breast  tightened,  his  heart 
swelled,  his  blood  coursed  in  leaps  along  his  veins;  he  felt 
himself  trembling  with  emotion.  He  formed  no  hopes  as 
to  what  the  result  might  be,  but  the  firmness  which,  con- 
trary to  all  his  habits,  he  had  shown  in  presence  of  his 
mother  and  also  of  Bertha  had  answered  so  well  that  he 
now  resolved  to  be  equally  firm  with  Mary.  He  saw  very 
plainly  that  he  had  come  to  a  crisis  in  this  singular  situa- 
tion, and  that  eternal  happiness  or  irreparable  misery 
would  result  from  his  present  conduct. 

He  had  been  on  the  watch  about  an  hour  and  a  half,  fol- 
lowing anxiously  with  his  eyes  all  the  human  forms  which 
seemed  to  be  approaching  the  little  inn,  looking  to  see  if 
they  came  toward  the  door,  feeling  wretched  when  they 
passed  it  and  his  hopes  vanished,  thinking  minutes  eter- 
nities, and  wondering  whether  his  heart  would  not  burst  in 
his  bosom  when  he  was  actually  in  Mary's  presence. 

All  of  a  sudden  he  saw  a  shadow  coming  from  the  direc- 
tion of  the  rue  du  Château,  walking  rapidly,  skirting  the 
house,  and  making  no  sound  with  its  motions.  Ity  the 
clothing  he  recognized  a  woman;  but  it  could  not,  of 
course,  be  Petit-Pierre,  or  Mary,  for  it  was  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  either  would  venture  there  alone. 

And  yet,  it  seemed  to  the  baron  as  if  the  woman  were 
looking  up  at  the  house  trying  to  recognize  it;  next  he  saw 


266  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

her  stop  before  the  inn,  and  then  he  heard  the  three  little 
raps,  the  signal,  struck  on  the  door.  With  one  bound  he 
sprang  from  his  post  of  observation  to  the  staircase,  rushed 
hastily  down,  opened  the  door,  and  in  the  woman,  closely 
wrapped  in  a  mantle,  he  recognized  Mary. 

Their  two  names  were  all  the  young  pair  dared  to  say 
when  they  found  themselves  face  to  face;  then  Michel 
seized  the  young  girl  by  the  arm,  guided  her  through  the 
darkness,  and  took  her  to  the  chamber  on  the  first  floor. 
But  scarcely  had  they  entered  it,  when,  falling  on  his 
knees,  he  burst  forth  :  — 

"Oh,  Mary,  Mary  !  is  it  really  you  ?  Am  I  not  dream- 
ing ?  I  have  dreamt  so  often  of  this  blessed  moment,  so 
often  have  I  tasted  this  infinite  joy  in  imagination  only, 
that  I  fancy  I  am  still  the  plaything  of  a  dream.  Mary, 
my  angel,  my  life,  my  love,  oh  !  let  me  hold  you  to  my 
heart  !  " 

"Michel,  my  friend,"  said  the  young  girl,  sighing  to 
feel  she  could  not  conquer  the  emotion  that  now  seized 
upon  her,  "I,  too,  am  happy  that  we  meet  again.  But  tell 
me,  poor,  dear  friend,  you  have  been  wounded,  have  you 
not  ?  " 

"Yes,  yes;  but  it  was  not  my  wound  that  made  me 
suffer;  it  was  the  misery  of  being  parted  from  all  I  love 
in  this  world.  Oh,  Mary  !  believe  me,  death  was  deaf  and 
obstinate,  or  it  would  have  come  at  my  call." 

"  Michel,  how  can  you  say  such  things  ?  How  can  you 
forget  all  that  my  poor  Bertha  has  done  for  you  ?  We 
have  heard  all;  and  I  have  only  loved  and  admired  my 
dear  sister  the  more  for  the  devotion  she  has  proved  to 
you  at  every  instant." 

But  at  Bertha's  name  Michel,  who  was  resolved  not  to 
let  Mary  impose  her  will  upon  his  any  longer,  rose  abruptly 
and  walked  about  the  room  with  a  step  which  betrayed  his 
emotion.  Mary  saw  what  was  passing  in  his  soul  and  she 
made  one  last  effort. 

"Michel,"  she  said,   "I  ask  you,   I   conjure  you,  in  the 


michel's  love  affairs  take  à  happier  turn.     267 

name  of  all  the  tears  I  have  shed  to  your  memory,  speak 
to  ine  only  as  though  to  a  sister;  remember  that  you  are 
soon  to  become  my  brother.'' 

"  Your  brother  !  I,  Mary  ?  *'  said  the  young  man,  shak- 
ing his  head.  "As  for  that,  my  decision  is  made,  and 
firmly  made.  Never,  never,  will  I  be  your  brother,  I 
swear  it  !  " 

"Michel,  do  you  forget  that  you  once  swore  otherwise  ?" 

"I  did  not  swear  it;  no  !  you  wrung  the  promise  from 
me,  you  wrung  it  cruelly;  you  took  advantage  of  the  love 
I  bear  you  to  compel  me  to  renounce  it.  But  all  that  is 
within  me  rises  against  that  promise;  there's  not  a  fibre 
in  my  body  that  does  not  refuse  to  keep  it.  And  I  here 
say  to  you,  Mary,  that  for  two  months,  ever  since  we  have 
been  parted,  I  have  thought  of  you  only!  Buried  in  the 
blazing  ruins  at  La  Pénissière  and  near  to  death,  1  thought 
of  you  only  !  Wounded  with  a  ball  through  my  shoulder, 
which  just  missed  my  heart,  I  thought  of  you  only  !  Dying 
of  hunger,  weariness,  and  weakness,  I  thought  of  you  only 
—  of  you  alone  !  Bertha  is  my  sister,  Mary  ;  you  are  my 
beloved,  my  precious  treasure;  and  you,  Mary,  you  shall 
be  my  wife  !  " 

"  Oh,  my  God  !  how  can  you  say  it,  Michel  ;  are  you 
mad?  " 

"  I  was  for  a  moment,  Mary  —  when  I  thought  I  could 
obey  you.  But  absence,  grief,  despair,  have  made  another 
man  of  me.  Count  no  longer  on  the  poor,  weak  reed 
which  bent  at  your  breath;  whatever  you  may  say  or  do, 
you  shall  be  mine,  Mary  !  —  because  I  love  you,  because 
you  love  me,  because  I  will  no  longer  lie  to  God  or  to  my 
own  heart." 

"You  forget,  Michel,"  said  Mary,  "that  my  resolutions 
do  not  change  as  yours  do.  I  swore  to  a  course  of  conduct, 
and  I  shall  keep  my  oath." 

"So  be  it  ;  then  I  will  leave  Bertha  forever;  Bertha 
shall  never  see  me  again  !  " 

"  My  friend  —  " 


268  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

"Seriously,  Mary,  for  whose  sake  do  you  suppose  I -am 
here  now  ?  " 

"  You  are  here  to  save  the  princess,  to  whom  we  are  all 
devoted,  body  and  soul.'' 

"I  am  here,  Mary,  to  meet  you.  Don't  think  more  of 
my  devotion  to  the  princess  than  it  deserves.  I  am  devoted 
to  you,  Mary,  and  to  no  other.  What  inspired  in  my 
mind  the  thought  of  saving  Petit-Pierre  ?  My  love  for 
you  !  Should  I  have  thought  of  it,  think  you,  if  it  had 
not  been  that  in  saving  her  I  should  see  you  ?  Don't 
make  me  either  a  hero  or  a  demigod;  I  am  a  man,  and  a 
man  who  loves  you  ardently  and  is  ready  to  risk  his  head 
for  you  !  Why  should  I  care,  otherwise,  for  these  quar- 
rels of  dynasty  against  dynasty  ?  What  have  I  to  do  with 
the  Bourbons  of  the  elder  branch  or  the  Bourbons  of  the 
younger  branch,  —  I,  whose  past  has  nothing  to  do  with 
either  of  them;  I,  who  have  not  a  single  memory  connect- 
ing me  with  theirs  ?  My  opinions  are  —  you;  my  beliefs 
are  —  you.  If  you  were  for  Louis  Philippe,  I  should  be 
for  Louis  Philippe.  You  are  for  Henri  V.  and  I  am  for 
Henri  V.  Ask  for  my  blood  and  I  shall  say,  'There  it  is, 
take  it  !  '  but  don't  ask  me  to  lend  myself  any  longer  to  an 
impossible  state  of  things." 

"  What  do  you  mean  to  do,  then  ?  " 

"Tell  Bertha  the  truth." 

"  The  truth  !  impossible  !  you  will  never  dare  to  ?  " 

"  Mary,  I  declare  to  you  —  " 

"No,  no!" 

"  Yes,  I  declare  to  you  that  I  shall  do  it.  Every  day  I 
am  shaking  off  the  swaddling-clothes  of  my  weak  youth. 
There  's  a  vast  distance  already  between  me  and  that  child 
you  met  in  the  sunken  road,  scratched  and  weeping  with 
fear  at  the  very  name  and  thought  of  his  mother.  It  is  to 
my  love  that  I  owe  this  new  strength.  I  have  borne, 
without  blenching,  a  look  which  formerly  made  me 
bow  my  head  and  bend  my  knees.  I  have  told  all  to 
my  mother,  and  my  mother  has  replied  to  me,  'I  see  you 


Michel's  love  affairs  take  a  happieb  turn.     2G9 

are  a  man;  do  as  you  will!'  My  will  is  to  consecrate 
my  life  to  you;  but  I  also  will  that  you  shall  be  mine. 
See,  therefore,  in  what  a  senseless  struggle  you  have 
plunged  us.  I,  the  husband  of  Bertha  !  let  us  suppose  it 
for  a  moment;  why,  there  could  be  no  greater  misery  on 
earth  than  that  poor  creature  would  endure,  not  to  speak 
of  mine.  They  told  me  tales  in  my  infancy  of  Carrier's 
4  republican  marriages,  '  when  living  bodies  were  tied  to 
dead  ones  and  flung  into  the  Loire.  That,  Mary,  would 
be  our  marriage,  Bertha's  and  mine  ;  and  you,  you  would 
stand  by  and  see  our  agony  !  Mary,  would  you  be  glad  of 
your  work  then  ?  No,  I  am  resolved;  either  I  will  never 
see  Bertha  again,  or  the  first  time  that  I  do  see  her  I  will 
tell  her  how  my  stupid  timidity  misled  Petit-Pierre,  and 
how  courage  has  always  failed  me  until  now  to  speak  the 
truth  ;  and  then  —  then  —  no,  I  will  not  tell  her  that  I  do 
not  love  her,  but  I  will  tell  her  that  I  love  you." 

"  Good  God  !  "  cried  Mary,  "  but  don't  you  know,  Michel, 
that  if  you  do  that  she  will  die  of  it  ?  " 

"No,  Bertha  will  not  die  of  it,"  said  the  voice  of  Petit- 
Pierre,  who  had  entered  the  room  behind  them  without 
their  hearing  her.  The  two  young  people  turned  round 
hurriedly  with  a  cry.  "Bertha,"  continued  Petit-Pierre, 
"  is  a  noble  and  courageous  girl,  who  will  understand  the 
language  you  propose  to  address  her,  Monsieur  de  la 
Logerie,  and  who  will  also  know  how  to  sacrifice  her  hap- 
piness to  that  of  the  sister  she  loves.  But  you  shall  not 
have  the  pain  of  telling  her.  It  is  I  who  did  the  wrong,  — 
or  rather,  who  made  the  mistake,  —  and  it  is  I  who  will 
repair  it;  begging  Monsieur  Michel,"  she  added,  smiling, 
"to  be  in  future  a  little  more  explicit  in  his  confidences." 

At  the  first  sound  of  Petit-Pierre's  voice,  which  had 
startled  them  into  a  cry,  the  lovers  hastily  stepped  apart 
from  each  other  ;  but  the  princess  caught  them  by  the  arm, 
drew  them  once  more  together,  and  joined  their  hands. 

"Love  each  other  without  remorse  !"  she  said.  "You 
have  both  been  more  generous  than  any  one  has  the  right 


270  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

to  expect  of  our  poor  human  race.  Love  each  other  with- 
out stint  !  for  blessed  are  they  who  have  no  other  ambition 
in  this  world." 

Mary  lowered  her  eyes,  but  as  she  lowered  them  her 
hand  pressed  Michel's.  The  young  man  knelt  at  the  feet 
of  the  little  peasant  lad. 

"It  needs  all  the  happiness  you  order  me  to  take,  to 
console  me  for  not  dying  for  you,  "  he  said  in  a  spasm  of 
gratitude. 

"  Oh,  don't  talk  of  being  killed  or  dying  !  Alas  !  I  see 
how  useless  it  is  to  be  killed  or  to  die.  Look  at  my  poor 
Bonneville  !  What  good  did  all  his  great  devotion  do 
me  ?  No,  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie,  live  for  those  you  love  ; 
and  you  have  given  me  the  right  to  place  myself  among 
them  !  Live  for  Mary,  and  —  I  will  take  upon  myself  to 
declare  that  Mary  will  live  for  you  !  " 

"Ah!  madame,"  cried  Michel,  "if  all  Frenchmen  had 
seen  you  as  I  have  seen  you,  if  they  knew  you  as  I  know 
you  —  " 

"I  should  have  some  chance  of  returning  in  triumph  — 
especially  if  they  were  lovers  !  However,  let  us,  if  you 
please,  talk  of  other  things;  before  dreaming  of  future 
triumphs  we  must  think  of  present  retreat.  See  if  our 
friends  have  arrived.  I  must  blame  you,  my  brave  senti- 
nel, for  being  so  absorbed  in  Mademoiselle  Mary  that  you 
failed  to  make  me  the  concerted  signal  ;  and  I  might  have 
waited  in  the  street  till  morning  if  I  had  not  heard  your 
voice  through  the  window  ;  happily,  you  had  left  the  door 
open  and  I  was  able  to  get  in." 

As  Petit-Pierre  uttered  this  reproach  in  a  laughing  tone 
two  other  persons  who  were  to  accompany  her  in  her  flight 
arrived;  but  after  a  short  consultation  it  was  decided  that 
her  safety  might  be  endangered  by  the  presence  of  too 
many  persons,  and  they  stayed  behind.  Petit-Pierre, 
Michel,  and  Mary  started  alone. 

The  quay  was  deserted  ;  the  pont  Rousseau  seemed  abso- 
lutely solitary.     Michel  led   the  way.     They  crossed  the 


MICHELE  LOVE  AFFAIRS  TAKE  A  HAPPIER  TURN.      271 

bridge  without  incident.  Michel  took  a  path  along  the 
bank;  Petit-Pierre  and  Mary  followed  him,  walking  side 
by  side.  The  night  was  splendid,  —  so  splendid  that  they 
feared  to  continue  along  this  open  way.  Michel  proposed 
to  take  the  road  to  Pèlerin,  which  ran  parallel  with  the 
river,  but  was  less  exposed  than  the  path  along  the  bank. 

Thanks  to  the  moonlight,  they  could  see  the  river  from 
time  to  time,  like  a  broad  and  brilliant  silver  sheet, 
marked  here  and  there  with  wooded  islets,  their  tree-tops 
clearly  defined  against  the  sky.  This  clearness  of  the 
night,  though  it  had  its  inconveniences,  had  on  the  other 
hand,  some  advantages.  Michel,  who  served  as  guide, 
was  sure  of  not  losing  his  way;  and,  as  they  walked 
along,  they  could  even  see  the  schooner  itself  at  intervals. 

When  they  had  passed,  or  rather  gone  round  the  village 
of  Pèlerin,  the  young  baron  hid  the  duchess  and  Marie  in 
a  rocky  hollow  of  the  shore,  and  going  to  a  little  distance 
along  the  bank  he  gave  the  whistle  which  was  to  signal 
Joseph  Picaut. 

As  Joseph  did  not  reply  with  the  owl's  cry,  —  the  cry 
of  alarm,  — Michel,  who,  up  to  that  time  had  been  very 
anxious,  felt  more  easy.  He  felt  sure  that,  as  he  received 
no  answer,  the  Chouan  would  soon  come  to  him. 

He  waited  five  minutes;  nothing  stirred.  He  whistled 
again,  more  sharply  than  before;  still  nothing  answered, 
no  one  came.  He  thought  he  might  have  been  mistaken 
as  to  the  place  of  meeting,  and  he  hurried  along  the  bank. 
But  no  !  a  hundred  steps  farther  took  him  past  the  isle  of 
Couéron  ;  and  there  was  no  other  island  within  sight  where 
a  vessel  could  lie,  — yet  the  vessel  was  not  visible. 

It  certainly  was  the  spot  agreed  upon,  and  he  returned 
upon  his  steps.  The  vessel  must  be  within  sight  where 
he  had  first  stopped;  but  even  so,  he  could  not  explain  to 
himself  Joseph  Picaut's  absence. 

An  idea  came  to  him.  Had  the  enormous  sum  promised 
to  whoever  would  deliver  up  the  person  passing  under  the 
name  of  Petit-Pierre  tempted  the  Chouan,   whose  cast  of 


272  THE    LAST   VENDUE. 

countenance  had  not  impressed  him  favorably?  He  com- 
municated his  suspicions  to  Petit-Pierre  and  Mary,  who 
now  joined  him. 

But  Petit-Pierre  shook  her  head. 

"It  is  not  possible,"  she  said.  "If  that  man  had 
betrayed  us  we  should  have  been  arrested  before  now; 
besides,  that  does  n't  explain  the  absence  of  the  vessel." 

"  You  are  right.  The  captain  was  to  send  a  boat  ashore, 
and  I  don't  see  it." 

"Perhaps  it  is  not  yet  time." 

Just  then  the  church  clock  at  Pèlerin  struck  two,  as 
though  it  was  ordered  to  make  answer  to  her  words. 

"There  !  "  said  Michel,  "it  is  two  o'clock  !  " 

"  Was  there  any  fixed  hour  with  the  captain  ?  " 

"My  mother  could  only  act  on  probabilities,  and  she 
told  him  it  might  be  as  late  as  five  o'clock." 

"  He  had,  then,  no  reason  to  be  impatient,  for  we  have  got 
here  three  hours  too  soon." 

"What  shall  we  do?"  asked  Michel.  "My  responsi- 
bility is  so  great  I  dare  not  act  by  myself." 

"We  must  take  a  boat  and  look  for  the  ship.  As  the 
captain  is  aware  we  know  his  anchorage,  very  likely  he 
expects  us  to  go  to  him." 

Michel  went  a  few  hundred  feet  toward  Pèlerin  and 
found  a  boat  made  fast  to  the  shore.  Evidently,  it  had 
been  lately  used,  for  the  oars,  which  were  lying  in  the 
bottom  of  it,  were  still  wet.  He  came  back  with  the  news 
to  his  companions,  asking  them  to  go  back  into  their  hid- 
ing-place while  he  crossed  the  river. 

"  Do  you  know  how  to  row  ?  "  asked  Petit-Pierre. 

"I  own  to  you,"  replied  Michel,  blushing  for  his  ignor- 
ance, "that  I  am  not  very  good  at  it." 

"Then,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  "we  will  go  with  you.  I 
will  steer  the  boat;  many  a  time  I  have  done  that  in  the 
bay  of  Naples  for  amusement." 

"And  I'll  help  him  to  row,"  said  Mary.  "My  sister 
and  I  often  row  over  the  lake  of  Grand-Lieu." 


MICHEL'S  LOVE  AFFAIRS  TAKE  A   HAPPIES  TURN.       273 

All  three  embarked.  When  they  reached  the  middle  of 
the  river  Petit-Pierre,  looking  forward  in  the  direction 
of  the  current,   cried  out  :  — 

"  There  she  is  !  there  she  is  !  " 

"Who  ?     What?"  exclaimed  Mary  and  Michel  together. 

"  The  ship  !  the  ship  !     There,  don't  you  see  ?  " 

And  Petit-Pierre  pointed  down  the  river  in  the  direction 
of  Paimbœuf . 

"No,"  said  Michel,  "that  can't  be  the  ship  !  " 

"Why  not?" 

"  Because  it  is  sailing  away  from  us  !  " 

Just  then  they  reached  the  extremity  of  the  island. 
Michel  jumped  ashore,  helped  his  two  companions  to  land, 
and  ran  with  all  speed  to  the  other  side. 

"  It  is  our  vessel  !  "  he  cried,  returning.  "To  the  boat  ! 
to  the  boat,  and  row  as  fast  as  we  can  !  " 

All  three  sprang  again  into  the  boat;  Mary  and  Michel 
strained  at  the  oars  while  Petit-Pierre  took  the  helm. 
Helped  by  the  current  the  little  boat  flew  along  rapidly; 
there  was  still  a  chance  of  overtaking  the  schooner  if  she 
kept  on  her  present  course. 

But  presently  a  black  shadow  came  between  their  eyes 
and  the  lines  of  the  masts  and  cordage  standing  out 
against  the  sky;  she  had  hoisted  her  mainsail.  Soon 
another  bit  of  canvas,  the  foretopsail,  rose  into  the  air; 
the  jib  followed;  and  then  the  "Jeune  Charles,"  profiting 
by  the  breeze  which  was  steadily  rising,  hoisted  her  other 
sails,  one  by  one. 

Michel  took  the  second  oar  from  Mary's  tired  hands  and 
bent  to  the  thwarts  like  a  convict  on  the  galleys.  Despair 
had  seized  him  ;  for  in  that  second  of  time  he  had  seen 
all  the  consequences  which  would  follow  on  the  loss  of  the 
schooner.  He  began  to  shout  and  hail  her;  but  Petit- 
Pierre  stopped  him,  exhorting  him  to  prudence. 

"  Ah  !  "  she  cried,  her  gayety  surmounting  all  vicissi- 
tudes of  fortune,  "Providence  evidently  does  not  choose 
that  I  shall  leave  this  glorious  land  of  France  !  " 

VOL.    II. — 18 


274  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  God  grant  it  may  be  Providence  !  "  said  Michel. 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?  "  asked  Petit-Pierre. 

"I  fear  there  is  some  horrible  machination  under  all 
this." 

"Nonsense,  my  poor  friend;  it  is  only  a  bit  of  ill-luck. 
They  mistook  the  day  or  the  hour,  that 's  all.  Besides, 
how  do  we  know  whether  we  could  have  slipped  through 
the  cruisers  at  the  mouth  of  the  Loire  ?  All 's  for  the 
best,  perhaps." 

But  Michel  was  not  convinced  by  Petit-Pierre's  reason- 
ing; he  continued  to  lament;  talked  of  throwing  himself 
into  the  river  and  swimming  to  the  schooner,  which  was 
now  gently  widening  the  distance  and  beginning  to  disap- 
pear in  the  mists  on  the  horizon.  It  was,  in  fact,  with 
much  difficulty  that  Petit-Pierre  succeeded  in  calming  him  ; 
perhaps  she  might  not  have  done  so  without  Mary's  help. 

Three  o'clock  was  now  ringing  from  the  steeples  at 
Couéron;  in  another  hour  it  would  be  daylight.  There 
was  no  time  to  lose.  Michel  and  Mary  took  up  the  oars; 
they  regained  the  shore  and  left  the  boat  about  where  they 
found  it.  It  then  became  a  question  whether  they  should 
return  to  Nantes.  This  being  decided  upon,  it  was  most 
important  to  get  there  before  daybreak. 

Suddenly  Michel,  as  they  walked  along,  stopped  and 
struck  his  forehead. 

"I  'm  afraid  I  have  committed  a  great  folly,"  he  said. 

"  What  folly  ?  "  asked  the  duchess. 

"I  ought  to  have  returned  to  Nantes  by  the  other  bank." 

"Pooh  !  all  roads  are  safe  if  you  follow  them  cautiously; 
besides,  what  should  we  have  done  with  the  boat  ?  " 

"Left  it  on  the  other  shore." 

"  So  that  the  poor  fisherman  to  whom  it  belongs  would 
have  lost  a  whole  day  in  looking  for  it  !  No,  no!  better 
take  more  trouble  ourselves  than  snatch  the  bread  out  of 
the  mouth  of  some  poor  fellow  who  has  little  enough  as 
it  is." 

They  reached   the  pont   Rousseau.      Here   Petit-Pierre 


MICHELS  LOVE  AFFAIRS  TAKE  A  HAPPIES  TURN.       275 

insisted  that  .Michel  should  let  her  return  to  the  house 
alone  in  company  with  Mary;  but  Michel  would  not  con- 
sent. Perhaps  he  was  too  happy  in  the  sense  of  Mary's 
presence;  for  she,  under  the  influence  of  Petit-Pierre's 
promise,  replied  (with  sighs,  it  is  true,  but  still  she 
replied)  to  the  tender  words  her  lover  said  to  her.  Por 
this  reason,  perhaps,  he  positively  refused  to  leave  them, 
and  all  they  could  induce  him  to  do  was  to  walk  behind 
them,  at  some  distance. 

They  had  just  crossed  the  place  du  Bouffai  when  Michel, 
as  he  turned  the  corner  of  the  rue  Saint-Sauveur,  felt  cer- 
tain that  he  heard  a  step  behind  him.  He  turned  and  saw 
a  man,  who,  perceiving  that  he  was  noticed,  darted  hastily 
into  a  doorway.  Michel's  first  idea  was  to  follow  him; 
but  he  reflected  that  if  he  did  so  he  should  lose  sight  of 
Petit-Pierre  and  Mary.  He  therefore  hurried  on  and 
overtook  them. 

"  We  are  followed  !  "  he  said  to  Petit-Pierre. 

"Well,  let  them  follow  us  I"  said  the  duchess,  with  her 
usual  serenity.  "We  have  plenty  of  ways  of  evading 
them." 

Petit-Pierre  signed  to  Michel  to  follow  her  up  a  cross- 
street,  where,  after  taking  about  a  hundred  steps,  they 
reached  the  end  of  the  little  alley  which  Michel  had  once 
before  taken,  and  where  he  had  recognized  a  door  by  the 
branch  of  holly  hung  there  by  Père  Eustache. 

Petit-Pierre  lifted  the  knocker  and  struck  three  blows 
at  varying  intervals.  At  this  signal  the  door  opened  as 
though  by  magic.  Petit-Pierre  made  Mary  enter  the 
court-yard  and  then  she  entered  herself. 

"  Good  !  "  said  Michel.  "  Xow  I  will  see  if  that  man  is 
still  watching  us." 

"  Xo,  no  !"  cried  Petit-Pierre,  "you  are  condemned  to 
death.  If  you  forget  it,  I  don't;  and  as  you  and  I  are 
running  the  same  danger,  you  will  be  good  enough  to  take 
the  same  precautions.     Come  in  —  quick  !  " 

During  this  time  the  man  whom  Michel  had  seen  read- 


276  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

ing  his  paper  the  evening  before,  appeared  on  the  portico, 
wearing  the  same  dressing-gown  and  apparently  half  asleep. 
He  raised  his  arms  to  heaven  on  seeing  Petit-Pierre. 

"Never  mind!  never  mind!"  said  the  latter,  "don't 
lose  time  in  lamentation.  It  is  all  a  failure,  and  we  are 
followed.     Open  the  door,  my  dear  Pascal  !  " 

He  turned  to  the  half -open  door  behind  him. 

"No,  not  the  house  door,"  said  Petit-Pierre,  "the  gar- 
den door.  In  ten  minutes  the  house  will  be  surrounded} 
we  must  make  for  the  hiding-place  at  once  !  " 

"Follow  me,  then." 

"We  will  follow.  So  sorry  to  disturb  you,  my  poor 
Pascal,  at  such  an  early  hour  ;  and  all  the  more  distressed 
because  my  visit  will  force  you  to  come  too,  if  you  don't 
want  to  be  arrested." 

The  garden  door  was  now  open.  Before  passing  through, 
Michel  stretched  out  his  hand  to  take  Mary's.  Petit- 
Pierre  saw  the  action  and  gently  pushed  the  girl  into  the 
young  man's  arms. 

"Come,"  she  said,  "kiss  him,  or,  at  any  rate,  let  him 
kiss  you  !  Before  me,  it  is  quite  permissible  ;  I  stand  to 
you  as  a  mother,  and  I  think  the  poor  lad  has  fully  earned 
it.  There  !  Now  go  your  way,  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie, 
and  we  will  go  ours;  but  remember  that  the  care  of  my 
own  interests  will  not  prevent  me  from  looking  after 
yours." 

"When  may  I  see  her  again  ?"  said  Michel,  timidly. 

"It  will  be  dangerous,  I  know  that,"  replied  Petit- 
Pierre;  "but  after  all,  they  say  there  's  a  God  who  pro- 
tects both  lovers  and  drunkards,  and  if  so,  I  '11  rely  on 
him.  You  shall  pay  one  visit  at  least  to  the  rue  du 
Château,  No.  3.  I  intend,  if  I  can,  to  return  your  Mary 
to  you." 

So  saying,  Petit-Pierre  gave  Michel  a  hand,  which  he 
kissed  respectfully;  then  Petit-Pierre  and  Mary  turned  in 
the  direction  of  the  upper  town,  while  Michel  took  his 
way  back  toward  the  pont  Kousseau. 


FISHERMEN    AND    FISHERMEN.  1277 


XXVIII. 

SHOWING  HOW  THERE   MAY  BE  FISHERMEN  AND  FISHERMKN. 

Maître  Courtin  had  been  very  unhappy  in  mind  during 
the  whole  evening  Madame  de  la  Logerie  had  compelled 
him  to  pass  with  her.  By  gluing  his  ear  to  the  door  he 
had  heard  every  word  the  baroness  had  said  to  her  son, 
and  he  knew,  therefore,  of  the  scheme  of  the  schooner. 

Michel's  departure  would,  of  course,  upset  all  his  pro- 
jects for  the  discovery  of  Petit-Pierre;  consequently,  he 
was  little  desirous  of  the  honor  the  baroness  did  him  in 
taking  him  home  with  her.  He  was,  in  fact,  most  anxious 
to  get  back  to  the  farmhouse.  He  hoped,  by  evoking  the 
image  of  Mary,  to  prevent,  or  at  least  delay,  the  flight  of 
his  young  master;  for  if  the  latter  departed  he  lost,  of 
course,  the  thread  by  which  he  expected  to  penetrate  the 
labyrinth  in  which  Petit-Pierre  was  hidden. 

Unluckily  for  him,  as  soon  as  Madame  de  la  Logerie 
reached  the  château  she  strack  another  vein  of  ideas.  In 
taking  Courtin  from  the  farmhouse  her  only  idea  had  been 
to  hide  her  son's  departure  and  protect  him  from  the 
farmer's  curiosity;  but  on  reaching  the  château  she  found 
the  house,  occupied  for  the  last  few  weeks  by  a  band  of 
soldiers,  in  such  deplorable  disorder  that  she  forgot,  in 
presence  of  a  devastation  which  assumed  to  her  eyes  the 
proportions  of  a  catastrophe,  all  her  natural  distrust  of 
Courtin,  and  she  kept  him  with  her  as  the  recipient  and 
echo  of  her  lamentations.  Her  despair,  expressed  with 
the  energy  of  conviction,  prevented  Courtin  from  leaving 
her,  without  some  decided  pretext,  and  therefore  delayed 
his  return  to  the  farmhouse. 


278  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

He  was  too  shrewd  not  to  suspect  that  the  baroness  had 
brought  him  to  keep  him  away  from  her  son;  but  her 
despair  was  so  genuine  at  the  sight  of  her  broken  china, 
shattered  mirrors,  greasy  carpets,  and  her  salon  trans- 
formed into  a  guardroom  and  adorned  with  primitive  but 
most  expressive  designs,  that  he  began  to  doubt  his  first 
suspicion,  and  to  think  that  if  his  young  master  had  really 
not  been  cautioned  against  him  it  would  be  an  easy  matter 
to  join  him  before  he  could  board  the  vessel. 

It  was  nine  o'clock  before  the  baroness,  after  shedding 
a  last  tear  over  the  filthy  defacements  of  the  château,  got 
into  her  carriage  and  Courtin  was  enabled  to  give  the  order 
to  the  postilion  to  drive  on:  "Road  to  Paris!  "  No  sooner 
had  he  done  so  than  he  turned  round  rapidly  and  ran  with 
all  his  might  toward  the  farmhouse. 

It  was  empty;  the  servant  told  him  that  Monsieur 
Michel  and  Mademoiselle  Bertha  had  been  gone  two  hours, 
and  had  taken  the  road  to  Nantes. 

Courtin  at  once  thought  of  following  them,  and  ran  to 
the  stable  to  get  his  pony,  —  that,  too,  had  gone  !  In  his 
hurry  he  had  forgotten  to  ask  the  servant  by  what  manner 
of  locomotion  his  young  master  had  started.  The  recollec- 
tion of  his  pony's  extremely  slow  method  of  progression 
reassured  him  somewhat;  but,  at  any  rate,  he  only  stopped 
in  his  own  house  long  enough  to  get  some  money  and  the 
insignia  of  his  dignity  as  mayor;  then  he  started  bravely 
afoot  in  quest  of  him  whom  by  this  time  he  regarded  as  a 
fugitive  and  almost  as  the  embezzler  of  a  hundred  thou- 
sand francs,  which  his  imagination  had  already  discounted 
through  the  person  of  Mary  de   Souday's  lover. 

Maître  Courtin  ran  like  one  who  sees  the  wind  whirling 
away  his  bank-notes;  in  fact,  he  went  almost  as  fast  as 
the  wind.  But  his  haste  did  not  prevent  him  from  stop- 
ping to  make  inquiries  of  every  one  he  passed.  The  mayor 
of  La  Logerie  was  innately  prying  at  all  times,  and  on 
this  occasion,  as  may  well  be  supposed,  he  was  not  back- 
ward with  his  questions. 


K1MIERMEN    AND   FISHERMEN.  279 

At  Saint-Philbert-de-Graud-Lieu,  he  was  told  that  his 
pony  had  been  seen  about  half-past  seven  o'clock  that  even- 
ing. He  asked  who  rode  it]  but  he  got  no  satisfactory 
answer  on  that  point, — the  inn-keeper,  of  whom  he 
impaired,  having  taken  notice  only  of  the  obstinacy  of  the 
animal  in  refusing  to  pass  the  tavern  sign  (a  branch  of 
holly  and  three  apples  saltierwise)  where  his  master  usually 
baited  him  on  the  way  to  Nantes. 

A  little  farther  on,  however,  the  farmer  was  luckier; 
the  rider  was  described  to  him  so  exactly  that  he  could 
have  no  doubt  about  his  being  the  young  baron;  and  he 
was  also  told  that  the  traveller  was  alone.  The  mayor,  a 
prudent  man  if  ever  there  was  one,  supposed  that  the  two 
young  people  had  parted  company  out  of  prudence,  mean- 
ing to  rejoin  each  other  by  different  roads.  Luck  was 
evidently  on  his  side;  the  pair  were  parted,  and  he  knew, 
if  he  could  only  meet  Michel  alone,  the  game  was  won. 

He  felt  so  sure  that  the  young  baron  had  not  deviated 
from  the  road  and  was  now  in  Nantes  that  when  he  reached 
the  inn  of  the  Point-du-Jour  he  did  not  trouble  himself 
to  ask  the  inn-keeper  for  further  information,  which,  by 
the  bye,  he  doubted  if  the  man  would  give  him.  He 
stopped  only  long  enough  to  eat  a  mouthful,  and  then, 
instead  of  following  Michel  into  Nantes,  he  turned  back 
over  the  pont  Rousseau  and  then  to  the  right,  in  the  direc- 
tion of  Pèlerin.     The  wily  farmer  had  his  plan. 

We  have  already  explained  the  hopes  which  Courtin  had 
founded  on  Michel.  Mary's  lover  would  sooner  or  later 
betray  to  him,  for  some  personal  end,  the  secret  hiding- 
place  of  the  woman  he  loved;  and  as  that  beloved  woman 
was  living  with  Petit-Pierre,  Michel's  betrayal  of  Mary's 
retreat  would  also  betray  the  duchess.  But  if  Michel  con- 
trived to  escape,  all  Courtin's  hopes  went  with  him. 
Consequently,  at  any  cost  Michel  must  not  escape.  Now, 
if  Michel  did  not  find  the  "Jeune  Charles"  at  her  anchor- 
age Michel  would  be  forced  to  remain. 

As  for  Madame  de  la  Logerie,  she  being  well  on   the 


280  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

road  to  Paris,  it  would  be  some  days  at  least  before  she 
could  hear  that  her  son  had  not  sailed,  and  could  take 
other  measures  to  remove  him  from  La  Vendée.  Courtin 
was  confident  that  this  delay  would  suffice  him  to  obtain 
from  Michel  the  clue  he  sought. 

The  only  difficulty  was  that  he  did  not  know  in  what 
way  to  reach  the  captain  of  the  "Jeune  Charles,"  the 
name  of  the  schooner  which  he  had  heard  the  baroness  tell 
to  Michel;  but  —  without  dreaming  of  his  likeness  in  this 
to  the  greatest  man  of  antiquity  —  Courtin  resolved  to  run 
for  luck. 

Luck  did  not  escape  him.  When  he  reached  the  top  of 
the  hill  above  Couéron  he  saw,  above  the  poplar-trees  on 
the  islet,  the  masts  of  the  schooner;  the  foretopsail  was 
hoisted  and  was  flapping  to  the  breeze.  Undoubtedly,  it 
was  the  vessel  he  was  in  search  of.  In  the  lessening 
twilight,  which  was  beginning  to  make  all  things  indis- 
tinct, Maître  Courtin,  glancing  along  the  shore,  saw  at 
about  ten  paces  from  him  a  fishing-rod  held  horizontally 
over  the  river  with  a  line  at  the  end,  and  a  cork  at  the  end 
of  the  line  which  floated  on  the  current. 

The  rod  seemed  to  come  from  a  small  hillock,  but  the 
arm  that  held  it  was  invisible.  Maître  Courtin  was  not  a 
man  to  remain  in  ignorance  of  what  he  wanted  to  know  ; 
he  walked  straight  to  the  hillock  and  round  it;  there  he 
discovered  a  man  crouching  in  a  hollow  between  two  rocks, 
absorbed  in  contemplation  of  the  swaying  of  his  float  at 
the  will  of  the  current. 

The  man  was  dressed  as  a  sailor,  —  that  is,  he  wore 
trousers  of  tarred-cloth  and  a  pea-jacket;  on  his  head  was 
a  species  of  Scotch-cap.  A  few  feet  from  him  the  stern  of 
a  boat,  fastened  by  its  bow  to  the  shore,  swayed  gently  to 
the  wash  of  the  water.  The  fisherman  did  not  turn  his 
head  as  Courtin  approached  him,  although  the  latter  took 
the  precaution  to  cough,  and  make  his  cough  significant  of 
a  desire  to  enter  into  conversation.  The  fisherman  not 
only  kept  an  obstinate  silence,  but  he  did  not  even  look 
Courtin's  way. 


FISHERMEN  AND  FISHERMEN.  281 

''It  is  pretty  late  to  be  fishing,"  remarked  the  mayor 
of  La  Logerie  at  last. 

"That  shows  you  know  nothing  about  it,"  replied  the 
fisherman,  with  a  contemptuous  grimace.  "I  think,  on 
the  contrary,  that  it  is  rather  too  early.  Night  is  the 
time  it  is  worth  while  to  fish;  you  can  catch  something 
better  than  the  young  fry  at  night." 

"Yes;  but  if  it  is  dark  how  can  you  see  your  float  ?  " 

"What  matter?"  replied  the  fisherman,  shrugging  his 
shoulders.  "  My  night  eyes  are  here,"  he  added,  showing 
the  palm  of  his  hand. 

"I  understand;  you  mean  you  feel  a  bite,"  said  Courtin, 
sitting  down  beside  him.  "I'm  fond  of  fishing  myself; 
and  little  as  you  think  so,  I  know  a  good  deal  about 
it." 

"You?  fishing  with  a  line?"  said  the  other,  with  a 
doubtful  air. 

"No,  not  that,"  replied  Courtin.  "I  depopulate  the 
river  about  La  Logerie  with  nets." 

Courtin  dropped  this  hint  of  his  locality,  hoping  that  the 
fisherman,  whom  he  took  to  be  a  sailor  stationed  there  by 
the  captain  of  the  schooner  to  take  Monsieur  Michel  de  la 
Logerie  on  board,  would  catch  it  up;  but  he  was  mistaken; 
the  man  gave  no  sign  of  recognizing  the  name;  on  the  con- 
trary he  remarked  coolly  :  — 

"You  boast  of  your  talent  for  the  great  art  of  fishing, 
but  I  don't  believe  in  it." 

"  Pray  why  ?  "  asked  Courtin.  "  Have  you  the  mon- 
opoly ?  " 

"Because  you  seem  to  me,  my  good  sir,  to  be  ignorant 
of  the  first  principle  of  that  art." 

"And  what  may  that  principle  be  ?"  asked  Courtin. 

"When  you  want  to  catch  fish  avoid  four  things." 

"What  are  they  ?" 

"Wind,  dogs,  women,  and  chatterers.  It  is  true,  I 
might  say  three,"  added  the  man  in  the  pea-jacket,  philo- 
sophically, "for  women  and  chatterers  are  one." 


282  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Pshaw  !  you  '11  soon  find  out  that  my  chattering,  as 
you  call  it,  is  not  out  of  season,  for  I  am  going  to  propose 
to  you  to  earn  a  couple  of  francs." 

"When  I  've  caught  half  a  dozen  fish  I  shall  have  earned 
more  than  a  couple  of  francs,  and  amused  myself  into  the 
bargain." 

"Well,  I  '11  go  as  far  as  four,  or  even  five  francs,"  con- 
tinued Courtin;  "and  you  will  have  the  chance  to  do  a 
service  to  your  neighbor,  which  counts  for  something, 
doesn't  it?" 

"  Come,"  said  the  fisherman,  "don't  beat  round  the  bush; 
what  do  you  want  of  me  ?  " 

"  I  want  you  to  take  me  on  board  your  schooner,  the 
'Jeune  Charles,'  the  masts  of  which  I  see  over  there 
beyond  the  trees." 

"The  'Jeune  Charles,'  said  the  sailor,  reflectively, 
"what's  the  'Jeune  Charles'  ?" 

"Here,"  said  Maître  Courtin,  giving  the  fisherman  an 
oil-skin  hat  he  had  picked  up  on  the  shore,  on  which 
appeared  the  words,  in  gilt  letters:  "Le  Jeune  Charles." 

"Well,  I  admit  you  must  be  a  fisherman,  my  friend," 
said  the  sailor.  '  "  The  devil  take  me  if  your  eyes  are  not 
in  your  fingers,  like  mine;  otherwise  you  never  could 
have  read  that  in  the  darkness  !  Now,  then,  what  have 
you  to  do  with  the  'Jeune  Charles'  ?" 

"  Did  n't  I  mention  something  just  now  that  struck  your 
ear  ?  " 

"My  good  man,"  said  the  fisherman,  "I  'm  like  a  well- 
bred  dog;  I  don't  yelp  when  bitten.  Heave  your  own  log 
and  don't  trouble  yourself  about  my  keel." 

"Well,  I  am  Madame  la  Baronne  de  la  Logerie's  farmer." 

"What  of  it?" 

"I  am  sent  by  her,"  said  Courtin,  growing  more  and 
more  audacious  as  he  went  on. 

"What  of  that?"  asked  the  sailor,  in  the  same  tone, 
but  more  impatiently.  "You  come  from  Madame  de  la 
Logerie;    well,  what  have  }rou  got  to  say  for  her?" 


FISHERMEN  AND  FISHERMEN.  283 

"I  came  to  tell  you  that  the  thing  is  a  failure;  it  is  all 
discovered,  and  you  must  get  away  as  fast  as  you  can." 

"That  maybe,"  replied  the  fisherman;  "but  it  doesn't 
concern  me.  I  am  only  the  mate  of  the  'Jeune  Charles;  ' 
though  I  do  know  enough  of  the  matter  to  put  you  aboard 
and  let  you  talk  with  the  captain." 

So  saying,  he  tranquilly  wound  up  his  line  and  threw 
it  into  the  boat,  which  he  pulled  toward  him.  Making  a 
sign  to  Courtin  to  sit  down  in  the  stern,  he  put  twenty 
feet  between  him  and  the  shore  with  one  stroke  of  the  oars. 
After  rowing  five  minutes  he  turned  his  head  and  found 
they  were  close  alongside  the  "Jeune  Charles,"  which, 
being  in  ballast,  rose  some  twelve  feet  above  them  out  of 
the  water. 

At  the  sound  of  oars  a  curiously  modulated  whistle  came 
from  the  schooner,  to  which  the  mate  replied  in  somewhat 
the  same  manner.  A  figure  then  appeared  in  the  bows; 
the  boat  came  up  on  the  starboard  side  and  a  rope  was 
thrown  to  it.  The  man  with  the  pea-jacket  climbed  aboard 
with  the  agility  of  a  cat,  then  he  hauled  up  Courtin,  who 
was  less  used  to  such  nautical  scrambling. 


284  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 


XXIX. 

INTERROGATORIES  AND  CONFRONTINGS. 

When,  to  his  great  joy,  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie  found 
himself  safely  on  the  deck  of  the  vessel,  he  saw  a  human 
form  whose  features  he  could  not  distinguish,  so  hidden 
were  they  in  a  thick  woollen  muffler  which  was  wound 
around  the  collar  of  an  oil-skin  coat;  but  whom,  by  the 
respectful  attitude  of  the  cabin-boy,  who  had  summoned 
him  on  deck,  Courtin  took  to  be  the  captain  of  the  schooner 
himself. 

"What 's  all  this  ?  "  said  the  latter,  addressing  the  mate 
and  swinging  the  light  of  a  lantern,  which  he  took  from 
the  cabin-boy,  full  in  the  face  of  the  new-comer. 

"He  comes  from  you  know  who,"  replied  the  mate. 

"Nonsense  !"  returned  the  captain.  "What  are  your 
eyes  good  for  if  they  can't  tell  the  difference  between  the 
cut  of  a  young  fellow  of  twenty  and  an  old  hulk  like 
that  ?  " 

"I  am  not  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie,  that 's  a  fact,"  said 
Courtin.     "I  am  only  his  farmer  and  confidential  man." 

"Very  good;  that 's  something,  but  not  all." 

"  He  has  ordered  me  —  " 

"In  the  name  of  all  the  porpoises  !  I  don't  ask  what 
he  ordered  you,  you  miserable  land -lubber,"  cried  the 
captain,  squirting  a  black  jet  of  saliva,  —  an  action  which 
somewhat  hindered  the  explosion  of  his  evident  wrath. 
"I  tell  you  that's  something,  but  not  all." 

Courtin  looked  at  the  captain  with  an  amazed  air. 

"  Don't  you  understand,  —  yes  or  no  ?  "  demanded  the 
latter.     "If   no,   say  so   at  once,   and  you    shall   be   put 


INTERROGATORIES    AND    CONFEONTINGS.  2S5 

ashore  with  the  honors  you  deserve,  ■ —  and  that 's  a  good 
taste  of  the  cat-o'-nine-tails  round  your  loins." 

Courtin  now  perceived  that  in  all  probability  Madame 
de  la  Logerie  had  agreed  with  the  captain  of  the  "  Jeune 
Charles"  on  a  password,  or  sign  of  recognition;  that  sign 
he  did  not  know.  He  felt  he  was  lost  ;  all  his  plans  crum- 
bled to  naught,  his  hopes  vanished;  besides  which,  caught 
in  a  trap  like  a  fox,  he  would  appear  in  the  young  master's 
eyes  when  he  came  aboard  for  what  he  really  was.  His 
only  way  of  escape  from  the  luckless  position  he  had  put 
himself  into  was  to  pretend  that  simplicity  of  a  peasant 
which  sometimes  amounts  to  idiocy  and  to  empty  his  face 
of  all  intelligence. 

"Hang  it,  my  dear  gentleman,"  he  said,  "I  don't  know 
a  thing  more,  myself.  My  good  mistress  said  to  me,  says 
she:  'Courtin,  my  good  friend,  you  know  the  young  baron 
is  condemned  to  death.  I  've  arranged  with  a  worthy 
.sailor  to  get  him  out  of  France;  but  we  've  been  denounced 
by  some  traitor.  Go  and  tell  this  to  the  captain  of  the 
"Jeune  Charles,"  which  you'll  find  at  anchor  opposite 
Couéron,  behind  the  islands  !  '  and  I  came  just  as  hard  as 
I  could,  and  that 's  all  I  know." 

Just  then  a  vigorous  "  Ahoy  !  "  was  given  from  the  bows 
of  the  vessel  and  diverted  the  captain's  mind  from  the  vio- 
lent reply  he  was  doubtless  about  to  make.  He  turned  to 
the  cabin-boy,  who,  lantern  in  hand  and  mouth  open,  was 
listening  to  the  conversation  between  his  master  and 
Courtin. 

"What  are  you  doing  there,  you  shirk,  booby,  whelp  ?  " 
cried  the  captain,  accompanying  his  words  with  a  panto- 
mine  which  —  thanks  to  the  rapid  evolutions  of  the  young 
aspirant  to  a  broad  pennant  —  touched  him  only  on  the 
fleshy  parts,  though  it  sent  him  whirling  into  the  gang- 
way. "  Is  that  how  you  mind  your  work  ?  "  Then,  turn- 
ing to  the  mate  he  added:  "Don't  let  any  one  aboard 
without  knowing  him." 

But  the  words  were  hardly  out  of  his  mouth  before  the 


286  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

new-coiner,  using  the  rope  which  had  hoisted  Courtin,  and 
which  was  still  hanging,  appeared  on  deck.  The  captain 
picked  up  the  lantern  which  the  cabin-boy  had  dropped  in 
his  skurry,  and  which,  providentially,  was  not  extinguished; 
and  then,  light  in  hand,  he  advanced  to  his  visitor. 

"  By  what  right  do  you  come  aboard  my  vessel  without 
hailing  me,  you  !  "  cried  the  angry  captain,  seizing  the 
stranger  by  the  collar. 

"I  came  aboard  because  I  have  business  with  you," 
replied  the  other,  with  the  confident  air  of  a  man  who  is 
sure  of  his  facts. 

"What  is  it,  then  ?     Out  with  it,  quick  !  " 

"Let  go  of  me,  first.  You  may  be  sure  I  sha'n't  get 
away,  as  I  came  of  my  own  accord." 

"  Ten  thousand  millions  of  whales  !  "  cried  the  captain, 
"holding  you  by  the  collar  doesn't  choke  the  words  in 
your  throat,   does  it  ?  " 

"But  I  can't  talk  when  I  'm  embarrassed  !"  said  the 
new-comer,  without  showing  the  least  timidity  at  the  tone 
of  his  questioner. 

"Captaiu,"  said  the  mate,  intervening,  "it  seems  to  me, 
sacredie  !  that  you  are  mistaken.  You  ask  the  fellow  who 
is  backing  and  filling  to  show  his  colors,  and  you  are 
tying  the  halliards  of  the  other  when  he  wants  to  run 
his  up." 

"True,"  said  the  captain,  loosening  his  hold  of  the  new- 
comer, whom  our  readers  of  course  know  to  be  Jean 
Picaut,  Michel's  real  messenger. 

The  latter  now  felt  in  his  pocket,  pulled  out  the  hand- 
kerchief given  to  h  ira  by  Michel,  and  offered  it  to  the 
captain,  who  carefully  unfolded  it  and  counted  the  three 
knots  with  as  much  particularity  as  though  they  were  so 
much  money.  Courtin,  to  whom  no  one  was  paying  atten- 
tion, watched  the  whole  scene  and  lost  nothing  of  it. 

"Good  !  "  said  the  captain;  "you  are  all  right.  We  '11 
talk  presently  ;  but  first,  I  must  get  rid  of  that  fellow  aft. 
You,  Antoine,"  he  added,  addressing  the  mate,  "take  this 


INTEKKOGATORIES   AND   CONFBONTINGS.  287 

one  to  the  steward's  pantry  and  give  him  a  quantum  of 

grog." 

The  captain  returned  aft  and  found  Courtin  sitting  on  a 
coil  of  rope.  The  mayor  of  La  Logerie  held  his  head  in 
his  hands  as  if  he  were  paying  not  the  slightest  attention 
to  the  scene  forward.  He  seemed  stupefied,  whereas,  as 
we  know,  he  had  not  lost  a  word  of  the  conversation 
between  the  captain  and  Joseph  Picaut. 

"  Oh,  do  have  me  put  ashore,  captain  !  "  he  said,  as  soon 
as  he  saw  the  latter  approaching  him.  "I  don't  know 
what 's  the  matter  with  me;  but  for  the  last  few  minutes 
I  have  felt  very  ill  —  as  if  I  were  going  to  die  !  " 

"Pooh  !  if  you  are  like  that  in  a  river  swell  you  '11  have 
a  hard  time  of  it  before  we  cross  the  line  !  " 

"  Cross  the  line  ?  good  God  !  " 

"Yes,  my  fine  fellow;  your  conversation  strikes  me  as 
so  agreeable  that  I  sha'n't  part  company  with  you.  You  '11 
stay  aboard  of  me  during  the  little  trip  half  round  the 
world  I  'm  bound  for." 

"  Stay  aboard  !  what,  here  ?  "  cried  Courtin,  feigning 
more  terror  than  he  really  felt.  "And  my  farm,  and  my 
good  mistress,  what  '11  become  of  them  ?  " 

"  As  for  the  farm,  I  '11  engage  to  show  you  such  sights 
in  foreign  lands  that  you  can  make  it  a  model  farm  when 
you  get  back.  And  as  for  your  good  mistress,  I  '11  replace 
her  advantageously." 

"But  why,  monsieur  ?  What  makes  you  take  this  sud- 
den resolution  to  carry  me  off?  Just  think,  if  my  stomach 
turns  with  this  river  swell,  as  you  call  it,  I  sha'n't  be  fit 
for  anything  all  the  way  !  " 

"That  will  teach  you  to  fool  the  captain  of  the  'Jeune 
Charles,  '  lubberly  thief  that  you  are  !  " 

"But  how  have  I  offended  you,  my  worthy  captain?  " 

"Come,"  said  the  officer,  apparently  resolved  to  cut 
short  the  dialogue,  "answer  plainly;  it  is  your  only  chance 
to  escape  going  to  the  sharks.     Who  sent  you  here  ?  " 

"I  told  you,"  cried  Courtin,    "it  was   Madame  de   la 


288  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

Logerie  !  and  when  I  tell  you  that  I  am  her  farmer,  it  is 
as  true  as  it  is  that  there  's  a  God  in  heaven  !  " 

"But,"  said  the  captain,  "if  Madame  de  la  Logerie  sent 
you,  she  must  have  given  you  something  by  which  you 
could  be  recognized,  —  a  note,  a  letter,  a  scrap  of  paper. 
If  you  have  nothing  to  show,  you  don't  come  from  her; 
and  if  you  don't  come  from  her,  you  are  a  spy  !  —  in  which 
case,  beware  !  The  moment  I  'm  sure  of  it,  I  '11  treat  you 
as  spies  should  be  treated  !  " 

"Ah!  my  God!"  cried  Courtin,  pretending  to  be  more 
and  more  terrified;  "I  can't  allow  myself  to  be  so  sus- 
pected. There,  take  these;  they  are  letters  to  me  which  I 
happen  to  have  about  me;  they  '11  show  you  I  really  am 
Courtin,  as  I  told  you;  and  there  's  my  scarf,  as  mayor  of 
La  Logerie.  My  God  !  what  can  I  do  to  convince  you  I 
speak  the  truth?" 

"Your  mayor's  scarf  !  "  cried  the  captain.  "How  is  it, 
you  rascal,  that  if  you  are  a  public  functionary  under  oath 
to  the  government,  how  is  it,  I  say,  that  you  are  aiding  and 
abetting  a  man  who  has  borne  arms  against  the  govern- 
ment, and  is  now  condemned  to  death?  " 

"  Ah  !  my  dear  monsieur,  that 's  because  I  am  so  attached 
to  my  masters  that  my  feelings  for  them  are  stronger  than 
my  sense  of  duty.  Well,  —  if  I  must  tell  you,  —  it  was  in 
my  capacity  as  mayor  that  I  knew  the  plan  was  betrayed, 
and  that  you  were  to  be  boarded  to-night.  I  told  Madame 
de  la  Logerie  of  the  danger;  and  it  was  then  she  said  to 
me:  'Take  that  handkerchief  and  find  the  captain  of  the 
"Jeune  Charles"  —  '  " 

"  She  gave  you  a  handkerchief  ?  " 

"  Yes,  upon  my  word  !  " 

"  Where  is  it  ?  " 

"In  my  pocket." 

"Fool,  idiot,  jackass,  give  it  to  me  !  " 

"Give  it  to  you?" 

"Yes." 

"Oh,  I  'in  willing,  — there  it  is  !  " 


INTERROGATORIES   AND   CONFRONTINGS.  289 

And  Courtin  slowly  drew  a  handkerchief  from  his  pocket. 

"  Give  it  me,  you  dog  !  "  cried  the  captain,  snatching  the 
handkerchief  from  Courtin's  hand  and  convincing  himself 
by  a  rapid  examination  that  the  three  knots  were  really 
there. 

"But,  you  stupid  brute,  you  idiot,  beast!"  continued 
the  captain,  "didn't  Madame  de  la  Logerie  tell  you  to  give 
me  that  handkerchief  ?  " 

"Yes,  she  told  me,"  replied  Courtin,  making  his  expres- 
sion of  face  as  vacant  as  possible. 

"  Then  why  did  n't  you  give  it  to  me  ?  " 

"Hang  it  !"  said  Courtin;  "when  I  was  hoisted  on  to 
the  deck  I  saw  you  blowing  your  nose  with  your  finger^, 
and  I  said  to  myself,  'Bless  me  !  if  the  captain  does  that 
he  won't  need  a  handkerchief.'  " 

"  Ha  !  "  said  the  captain,  scratching  his  head,  with 
remains  of  doubt  in  his  mind,  "either  you  are  a  clumsy 
trickster  or  a  downright  imbecile.  In  either  case,  as  there 
is  more  chance  of  your  being  imbecile,  I  prefer  to  settle 
on  that.  Now,  tell  me  over  again  what  you  are  here  for, 
and  what  the  person  who  sent  you  told  you  say  to  me." 

"Well,  here  's  word  for  word  what  my  good  mistress 
said  to  me:  'Courtin,'  says  she,  'I  know  I  can  trust  you, 
can't  I  ?  '  '  Yes,  that  you  can,'  says  I.  '  Well,'  says  she, 
'  you  must  know  that  my  son,  whom  you  've  watched  over, 
and  nursed,  and  hidden  in  your  house  at  the  risk  of  your 
life,  is  to  escape  to-night  on  board  of  the  "Jeune  Charles." 
But,  as  I  have  heard,  and  as  you  have  told  me  yourself, 
the  plan  is  discovered.  You  have  only  just  time  to  go  and 
tell  the  worthy  captain  that  he  must  not  wait  for  my  son, 
but  had  better  sail  away  as  fast  as  he  can,  or  he  will  be 
arrested  this  very  night  for  aiding  and  abetting  the  escape 
of  a  political  prisoner  —  and  also,  for  other  things.'  ' 

Maître  Courtin  added  the  conclusion  of  his  speech,  pre- 
suming from  the  general  appearance  of  the  captain  of  the 
"  Jeune  Charles  "  that  he  might  have  other  peccadilloes  on 
his   conscience   than   the  one    in   question.     Perhaps  the 

VOL.    II.  —  10 


290  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

mayor's  astute  mind  was  not  mistaken,  for  the  worthy 
sailor  was  somewhat  pensive  for  a  few  moments. 

"Come,"  he  said  at  last,  "follow  me." 

The  farmer  passively  obeyed;  the  captain  took  him  to 
his  own  cabin,  put  him  in,  and  double-locked  the  door. 
A  few  minutes  later  Courtin,  who  was  in  darkness  and  not 
a  little  uneasy  at  the  turn  that  matters  were  taking,  heard 
a  tramp  of  footsteps  on  the  deck  which  presently  approached 
the  cabin  door.  The  door  was  unlocked,  the  captain 
entered  first;  he  was  followed  by  Joseph  Picaut,  behind 
whom  came  the  mate,  bearing  a  lantern. 

"  Ah,  ça  !  "  cried  the  captain  of  the  "  Jeune  Charles,  " 
"  now  we  '11  get  at  the  bottom  of  this  matter  !  We  '11 
unravel  the  thread  which  seems  to  me  pretty  well  tangled 
up,  or,  by  the  hull  of  my  ship,  I  '11  brush  the  shoulders  of 
both  of  you  with  the  cat-o' -nine-tails  till  the  devil  him- 
self would  pity  you  !  " 

"  As  for  me,  captain,  I  have  said  all  I  have  to  say  !  " 
exclaimed  Courtin. 

Picaut  quivered  at  the  sound  of  that  voice  ;  he  had  not 
yet  seen  his  enemy,  and  was  not  aware  that  he  was  on 
board  the  vessel.  He  made  one  step  forward  to  convince 
himself. 

"  Courtin  !  "  he  cried,  "  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie  !  Cap- 
tain, if  that  man  knows  our  secret,  we  are  lost  !  " 

"  Who  is  he,  then  ?  "  demanded  the  captain. 

"  A  traitor,  a  spy,  a  sneak  !  " 

"The  devil  he  is  !"  cried  the  captain.  "You  needn't 
tell  it  me  fifty  times  before  I  believe  it;  for  there  's  some- 
thing sly  and  false  in  the  fellow's  face  which  does  n't  a  bit 
suit  me." 

"Ha!"  continued  Joseph  Picaut,  "you  are  not  mis- 
taken. He  's  the  damnedest  cur  and  lowest  scum  in  the 
whole  Retz  district  !  " 

"  What  have  you  got  to  say  to  that,  come  now  ?  "  said 
the  captain  to  Courtin. 

"  He  can't  say  anything;  T  defy  him  !  "  continued  Picaut. 


INTERROGATORIES    AND    CONFRONTINGS.  291 

Courtin  was  silent. 

"  Well,  well,  I  see  I  shall  have  to  take  strong  measures 
to  make  you  speak,  my  fine  fellow  !  "  said  the  captain, 
who,  thereupon,  pulled  from  his  bosom  a  little  silver 
whistle  hanging  to  a  silver  chain,  and  produced  therefrom 
a  prolonged  and  piercing  sound.  At  the  signal  two  sailors 
entered  the  cabin. 

At  sight  of  them  a  diabolical  smile  crossed  Courtin 's  face. 

"Good  !"  said  he;  "that's  just  what  I  wanted  before 
speaking." 

Taking  the  captain  by  the  arm  he  led  him  to  a  corner  of 
the  cabin  and  said  a  few  words  in  his  ear. 

"Is  that  true,  actually  true  ?  "  asked  the  captain. 

"Easy  enough  to  prove  it  !  "  replied  Courtin. 

"You  are  right  there,"  said  the  captain. 

At  a  word  from  him  the  mate  and  the  two  sailors  seized 
Joseph  Picaut,  pulled  off  his  jacket  and  tore  open  his 
shirt.  The  captain  then  came  up  to  him  and  gave  him  a 
smart  blow  on  the  shoulder.  Instantly  the  two  letters 
branded  on  the  Chouan  when  he  went  to  the  galleys  were 
visible  on  his  rugged  skin. 

Picaut  had  been  so  suddenly  and  violently  seized  and 
handled  by  the  three  men  that  he  had  no  time  to  defend 
himself  in  the  first  instance;  but  he  no  sooner  perceived 
the  object  of  the  assault  than  he  made  the  most  desperate 
efforts  to  escape  the  clutches  by  which  he  was  held;  of 
course,  however,  he  was  mastered  by  the  triple  strength 
against  him  and  could  only  roar  with  rage  and  blaspheme. 

"Lash  his  hands  and  feet  !  "  cried  the  captain,  judging 
of  the  man's  honesty  by  the  tell-tale  certificate  on  his 
shoulder,  "and  down  with  him  to  the  hold  between  two 
hogsheads  !"  Then,  turning  to  Maître  Courtin,  who  gave 
a  sigh  of  relief,  "I  beg  your  pardon,  my  worthy  mayor," 
he  said,  "for  confounding  you  with  a  scoundrel  of  that 
kind;  but  don't  be  uneasy,  I  '11  guarantee  that  if  any  one 
sets  fire  to  your  barn  within  the  next  three  years  it  won't 
be  that  fellow's  hand  that  applies  the  match  !  " 


292  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

Then,  without  losing  a  moment  he  went  on  deck,  and 
Courtin,  to  his  great  satisfaction,  heard  him  call  all  hands 
to  get  the  vessel  under  way. 

Once  convinced  of  the  danger  he  was  in,  the  worthy 
sailor  seemed  in  sos  great  a  hurry  to  put  as  much  space  as 
possible  between  the  law  and  himself,  that  he  excused 
himself  to  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie  without  even  the 
civility  of  offering  him  a  glass  of  brandy,  shoved  him  into 
the  boat  with  a  hasty  good-bye,  and  left  him  to  find  his 
way  to  the  shore  as  best  he  could. 

Maître  Courtin  rowed  as  directly  to  the  bank  as  the  cur- 
rent would  let  him  ;  and  just  as  the  boat's  keel  touched  the 
sandy  shore  he  saw  the  "  Jeune  Charles  "  slowly  moving 
as  sail  after  sail  was  hoisted  to  the  breeze. 

Courtin  then  hid  himself  in  the  same  nook  of  the  rocks 
where  he  had  found  the  mate  of  the  vessel  fishing,  and 
there  he  waited. 

But  not  for  long;  he  had  hardly  been  there  half  an  hour 
before  Michel  arrived,  and  he  saw,  to  his  great  astonish- 
ment, that  neither  of  the  two  women  who  accompanied 
him  was  Bertha.  A  moment  later,  and  he  discovered  that 
they  were  Mary  and  Petit-Pierre. 

Then,  indeed,  he  congratulated  himself  on  the  success  of 
his  trick,  so  wonderfully  seconded  by  chance,  and  he  now 
bent  all  his  mind  to  profit  by  the  rare  good  luck  which 
providence  had  bestowed  upon  him. 

It  will  readily  be  understood  that  he  never  lost  sight  of 
Michel,  Mary,  and  Petit-Pierre  as  long  as  they  waited  on 
the  shore,  and  that  when  the  three  embarked  in  the  boat 
to  overtake  the  ship,  he  watched  them  with  his  eyes  every 
inch  of  their  way;  that  he  saw  them  return  and  land,  and 
followed  them  back  to  Nantes  with  such  precautions  that  the 
three  fugitives  were  wholly  unaware  they  were  spied  upon. 

And  yet,  cautious  as  Courtin  was,  it  was  actually  he 
whom  Michel  had  caught  sight  of  at  the  corner  of  the 
place  du  Bouffai;  it  was  he  who  followed  the  trio  to  the 
house  which  he  saw  them  enter. 


INTERROGATORIES   AND   CONFRONTING^.  1:93 

AVlien  the  door  into  the  court-yard  closed  after  them, 
and  they  disappeared  from  sight,  he  was  certain  that  he 
now  knew  the  duchess's  hiding-place.  He  passed  before  the 
door,  and  as  he  did  so,  he  drew  from  his  pocket  a  bit  of 
chalk  and  made  a  cross  upon  the  wall  beside  it  ;  then,  cer- 
tain that  he  had  the  fish  in  his  net,  he  felt  he  had  only  to 
draw  it  in  and  put  his  hand  on  a  hundred  thousand  francs. 


2U4  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 


XXX. 

WE   AGAIN    MEET    THE    GENERAL,,   AND    FIND    HE    IS    NOT 

CHANGED. 

Maître  Courtin  was  not  a  little  excited.  As  the  last  of 
the  three  persons  he  had  followed  from  Couéron  disap- 
peared into  the  court-yard  a  vision  danced  before  his  eyes, 
such  as  he  had  seen  that  night  on  the  moor  returning  from 
Aigrefeuille,  —  a  vision  that  seemed  to  him  the  most  beau- 
tiful of  all  possible  visions  :  he  saw  before  his  dazzled  eyes 
the  sparkling  of  a  pyramid  of  coins,  casting  their  adorable 
gold  reflections  into  the  far,  far  future. 

Only,  the  pyramid  was  double  the  size  of  the  one  he  had 
then  seen  :  for  his  first  thought  on  finding  the  fish  in  his 
net  was  that  he  should  be  a  monstrous  fool  if  he  let  that 
mysterious  man  at  Aigrefeuille  share  in  the  benefits  of  his 
catch.  He  resolved  on  the  spot  not  to  let  him  know  of  the 
discovery,  but  to  go  himself  straight  to  the  authorities  of 
Nantes  and  reveal  the  matter  to  them.  To  do  him  justice, 
however,  it  must  be  said  that  Maître  Courtin  did  think, 
in  this  first  flush  of  his  hopes,  of  his  young  master,  and  of 
the  fact  that  he  was  about  to  deprive  him  of  liberty,  per- 
haps of  life  ;  but  he  instantly  smothered  that  sentiment  of 
untimely  remorse,  and,  in  order  not  to  let  his  conscience 
send  forth  another  such  cry,  he  began  to  run  with  alj  his 
might  toward  the  Prefecture. 

He  had  hardly  gone  fifty  yards  before,  just  as  he  turned 
the  corner  of  the  rue  du  Marché,  a  man,  running  from  the 
opposite  direction,  bolted  against  him  and  knocked  him 
to  the  wall.  Courtin  gave  a  cry,  not  of  pain,  but  amaze- 
ment, for  the  man  was  no  other  than  Monsieur  Michel  de 


•THE    GENERAL    IS    NOT    CHANGED.  295 

la  Logerie,  whom  he  thought  he  had  left  safely  behind  the 
green  door  he  had  carefully  marked  with  a  white  cross. 

His  stupefaction  was  so  great  that  Michel  would  cer- 
tainly have  noticed  it  had  he  not  himself  been  so  pre- 
occupied; but  at  the  moment  he  was  only  delighted  to  see 
a  man  he  thought  to  be  his  friend,  and  who,  as  he  believed, 
might  now  be  of  use  to  him. 

"  Oh,  Courtin  !  "  he  cried,  "  tell  me,  did  you  come  down 
the  rue  du  Marché  ?  " 

"Yes,  Monsieur  le  baron." 

"Then  you  must  have  met  a  man  running  away." 

"No,  Monsieur  le  baron." 

"Why,  yes,  you  must  !  It  is  impossible  that  you  did 
not  see  him,  —  a  man  who  seemed  to  be  on  the  watch  for 
some  one  ?  " 

Maître  Courtin  reddened;  but  he  instantly  recovered 
himself. 

"Wait!  stop  !  yes,  I  did,"  he  said,  suddenly  resolving 
to  profit  by  this  unexpected  chance  of  averting  all  sus- 
picion from  himself.  "  There  was  a  man  walking  in  front 
of  me,  but  I  saw  him  stop  at  that  green  door  you  see  down 
there." 

"  That 's  it  !  "  cried  Michel,  forgetting  everything  except 
his  desire  to  discover  the  man  who  had  followed  them. 
"Courtin,  will  you  give  me  a  proof  of  your  fidelity  and 
devotion  ?  I  positively  must  discover  that  man.  Which 
way  do  you  think  he  went  ?  " 

"That  way,"  replied  Courtin,  pointing  to  the  first  street 
his  eyes  lighted  on. 

"Come  on,  then,  and  follow  me." 

Michel  started  to  run  in  the  direction  Courtin  had 
pointed  out;  bat  the  latter,  as  he  followed,  began  to 
reflect.  For  an  instant  he  thought  of  leaving  his  master 
to  run  where  he  liked,  and  going  himself  about  the  business 
he  was  engaged  in;  but  the  next  instant  he  thought  other- 
wise and  congratulated  himself  heartily  for  not  following 
his  first  idea. 


290  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

It  was  evident  to  his  mind  that  the  house  had  two  issues; 
and  as  Michel  had  discovered  they  were  watched,  both 
must  have  been  used  to  throw  the  pursuer  off  the  scent. 
Petit-Pierre  had  probably  gone  out  as  Michel  did,  by 
another  door.  Michel  must  surely  know,  by  this  time, 
the  real  retreat  where  Mary  lived  with  Petit-Pierre;  he 
would  therefore  stay  by  Michel,  from  whom  he  could 
undoubtedly  obtain  the  information  he  wanted;  whereas 
he  might  lose  all  by  pushing  matters  too  hastily.  He 
therefore  resigned  himself  to  the  loss  of  his  expected  catch 
and  possessed  his  soul  in  patience. 

He  hastened  his  pace,  and  rejoined  Michel. 

"Monsieur  le  baron,"  he  said,  "I  must  remind  you  to  be 
cautious.  It  is  getting  to  be  daylight;  the  streets  will 
soon  be  full  of  people,  and  they  will  all  look  at  you  if  you 
run  in  this  way  with  your  clothes  all  wet  and  muddy.  If 
we  meet  a  police-agent  he  will  certainly  think  it  suspicious 
and  arrest  you;  and  what  will  your  mother  say  then?  She 
has  given  me  so  many  cautions  about  you  !  " 

"  My  mother  ?  why,  she  thinks  me  at  sea,  on  my  way  to 
England  !  » 

"  Were  you  going  away  ?  "  asked  Courtin,  with  the  most 
innocent  air  in  the  world. 

"Yes;  did  n't  she  tell  you  so  ?  " 

"No,  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie,"  replied  the  farmer,  giv- 
ing an  expression  of  deep  and  bitter  sadness  to  his  counte- 
nance, "  no.  I  see  that,  in  spite  of  all  I  have  done  for  you, 
the  baroness  distrusts  me  ;  and  I  tell  you  that  cuts  me  to 
the  heart  as  a  ploughshare  cuts  into  the  ground." 

"Oh,  nonsense  !  don't  trouble  about  that,  my  good 
Courtin;  but  your  change  of  front  has  been  rather  sudden 
and  needs  explanation.  In  fact,  when  I  think  of  that 
night  you  cut  the  girths  of  my  horse's  saddle,  I  ask  myself 
why  you  have  become  so  kind  and  attentive  and  devoted." 

"Oh,  hang  it,  Monsieur  Michel!  that's  easy  told.  At 
that  time  I  was  fighting  for  my  political  opinions;  now 
that  all  danger  of  insurrection  is  over,  and  I  am  certain  the 


THE    GENERAL   JS    NOT  CHANGED.  297 

government  1  love  can't  be  overthrown,  1  don't  sec  any- 
thing in  Chouans  and  she-wolves  but  friends  of  my  master; 
and  it  makes  me  sorry  bo  be  so  little  understood." 

"Well,"  said  Michel,  "lam  going  to  give  you  a  proof 
that  1  appreciate  your  return  to  better  ideas  by  confiding 
to  you  a  secret  I  believe  you  bave  already  guessed. 
Courtin,  it  is  probable  that  the  new  Baronne  de  La  Logerie 
will  not  be  the  one  who,  till  now,  people  think  it  is." 

"You  mean  you  won't  marry  Mademoiselle  de  Souday  '.'  " 

"Quite  the  contrary;  only,  my  wife's  name  m.;\  be  Mary, 
and  not  Bertha." 

"Ah,  I  'm  glad  for  you  !  for  you  know  I  helped  that  on 
as  much  as  1  eould;  and  if  I  didn't  do  more  it  was  because 
you  wouldn't  let  me.  Ah,  ça  I  have  you  seen  Made- 
moiselle Mary  since  you  came  to  Nantes  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  have  seen  her;  and  the  few  minutes  I  spent  with 
her  sufficed,  I  hope,  to  secure  my  happiness,"  cried  Michel, 
giving  way  to  the  intoxication  of  his  joy.  Then  he  added: 
"  Are  you  obliged  to  go  back  to  La  Logerie  to-night  ?  " 

"  Monsieur  le  baron  ought  to  feel  that  I  am  at  his  ser- 
vice," replied  Courtin. 

"Very  good;  then  you  shall  see  her  yourself,  Courtin; 
for  to-night  I  'm  to  meet  her  again." 

"Where?" 

"Where  I  met  you  just  now." 

"Oh,  that's  good  !  "  said  Courtin,  his  face  brightening 
with  a  satisfaction  equal  to  that  on  Michel's  own  face. 
"That's  good  !  you  don't  know  how  happy  I  am  to  have 
you  marry  according  to  your  own  likings.  Faith  !  if  your 
mother  consents,  you  are  right  enough  to  take  the  one  you 
love.     You  see,  now,  I  gave  you  good  advice." 

And  the  worthy  farmer  rubbed  his  hands  as  though  he 
were  on  a  pinnacle  of  satisfaction. 

"My  good  Courtin,"  said  Michel,  touched  by  his  farmer's 
sympathy,  "  where  shall  I  find  you  this  evening  ?  " 

"Where  you  please." 

"  Did  n't  you  put  up,  as  I  did,  at  the  Point  du  Jour  ?  " 


298  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

"Yes,  Monsieur  le  baron." 

"Well,  then,  we  can  pass  the  day  there.  To-night  you 
can  go  with  me  when  I  meet  Mary,  and  keep  watch  for  us." 

"But,"  said  Courtin,  much  embarrassed  by  a  proposal 
which  interfered  with  all  his  plans,  "I  've  got  a  good  deal 
to  do  in  town." 

"Well,  I  '11  go  with  you;  it  will  help  me  to  kill  time." 

"No,  that  won't  do;  my  business  as  mayor  will  take  me 
to  the  Prefecture,  and  you  must  n't  go  there.  No,  do  you 
go  back  to  the  inn  and  keep  quiet,  and  to-night  at  ten 
o'clock  I  '11  be  on  hand  to  start,  — you  as  happy  as  a  king, 
and  I  very  glad  of  your  happiness." 

Courtin  was  most  anxious  to  be  rid  of  Michel  for  the 
present.  The  idea  of  gaining  the  whole  reward  for  the 
capture  of  Petit-Pierre  so  filled  his  mind  that  he  was 
determined  not  to  leave  Nantes  without  knowing  the  exact 
amount  offered,  and  laying  some  plan  to  obtain  it  all  him- 
self and  not  divide  it  with  any  one. 

Michel  yielded  to  Courtin's  reasoning,  and  giving  a 
glance  at  his  muddy  clothing  he  decided  to  take  leave  of 
him  then  and  there  and  go  back  to  the  tavern. 

As  soon  as  his  young  master  had  left  him  Courtin  made 
his  way  to  the  quarters  of  General  Dermoncourt.  He  gave 
his  name  to  the  orderly,  and  after  a  few  minutes'  delay 
he  was  shown  into  the  presence  of  the  man  he  came  to  see. 

The  general  was  a  good  deal  dissatisfied  with  the  turn 
matters  were  taking;  he  had  sent  to  Paris  plans  of  pacifi- 
cation, somewhat  like  those  which  had  succeeded  so  well 
under  General  Hoche.  These  plans  had  not  been  approved  ; 
the  general  saw  the  civil  authority  encroaching  everywhere 
on  the  powers  which  martial  law  assigned  to  the  military 
alone;  and  his  susceptibilities  as  an  old  soldier,  wounded 
at  every  turn,  together  with  his  patriotic  feelings,  made 
him  deeply  dissatisfied. 

"  What  do  you  want  ?  "  he  said  to  Courtin,  looking  him 
over  from  head  to  foot. 

Courtin  bowed  as  low  as  he  was  able. 


THE  GENERAL  IS  NOT  CHANGED.         209 

"General,"  he  said,  "perhaps  you  remember  the  fair  at 
Montaigu  ?  " 

"  Parbleu,  as  if  it  were  yesterday  !  and  especially  the 
night  after  it.  Ha  !  that  expedition  would  have  been  a 
success,  and  I  might  have  strangled  the  insurrection  at  its 
birth  if  a  scoundrelly  keeper  had  n't  inveigled  one  of  my 
troopers.     By  the  bye,  what  was  that  man's  name  ?  " 

"JeanOullier." 

"What  became  of  him  ?  " 

Courtin  could  not  help  turning  pale. 

"He  died,"  he  said. 

"The  best  thing  he  could  do,  poor  devil;  and  yet,  I  'm 
sorry  too, —  he  was  a  brave  fellow." 

"If  you  remember  the  man  who  defeated  the  affair, 
general,  it  seems  strange  you  have  forgotten  the  one  who 
helped  you  with  information." 

The  general  looked  at  Courtin. 

"Jean  Oullier  was  a  soldier,  a  comrade,  and  soldiers 
remember  each  other  ;  the  rest  —  I  mean  spies  and  in- 
formers—  they  forget  as  soon  as  possible." 

"Very  well,"  said  Courtin.  "Then  I  shall  have  to 
refresh  your  memory,  general,  and  tell  you  that  I  am  the 
man  who  informed  you  of  Petit-Pierre's  hiding-place." 

"Oh,  are  you  ?  "  said  the  general.  "Well,  what  do  you 
want  to  say  now  ?     Speak  out,  and  briefly  !  " 

"I  want  to  do  you  exactly  the  same  service  over  again." 

"  As  for  that,  times  are  changed,  my  good  friend.  We 
are  no  longer  among  the  sunken  roads  of  the  Retz  region, 
where  a  tiny  foot,  a  fair  skin,  and  a  soft  voice  are  remark- 
able because  they  are  rare  in  the  country.  Here,  all  the 
women  look  like  great  ladies  ;  and  a  score  of  men  of  your 
kind  have  been  to  me  to  sell  their  mare's-nests.  My 
soldiers  have  been  kept  on  the  qui-vive  all  the  time;  we 
have  searched  a  dozen  different  places,  and  all  to  no 
purpose." 

"  General,  T  have  a  right  to  expect  you  to  put  faith  in 
me,  because  the  information  I  gave  you  first  was  correct." 


300  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

"  Upon  my  word,  "  muttered  the  general,  in  a  low  tone, 
"  it  would  be  rather  pleasant  to  discover,  all  by  myself, 
what  that  man  from  Paris  with  his  squads  of  spies,  and 
sneaks,  and  pimps,  and  criminal  and  detective  police  can't 
find  out.  Are  you  sure  of  what  you  say  ?  "  he  continued, 
raising  his  voice. 

"I  am  sure  that  within  twenty -four  hours  I  shall  know 
the  street  and  the  number  of  the  house  —  " 

"Then  come  and  see  me." 

"But,  general,  I  should  wish  to  know  —  "  Courtin 
stopped. 

"  Know  what  ?  "  asked  the  general. 

"  I  have  heard  talk  of  reward,  and  I  wish  to  know  —  " 

"  Ah,  true  !  "  said  the  general,  looking  at  Courtin  with 
sovereign  contempt.  "I  forgot,  though  you  are  a  public 
functionary,  that  you  are  one  of  those  who  don't  neglect 
their  private  interests." 

"  You  said  yourself,  general,  that  we  were  the  ones  that 
were  soonest  forgotten." 

"And  you  want  money  to  take  the  place  of  public  grati- 
tude ?  Well,  that 's  logical.  So,  then,  you  don't  give,  my 
worthy  mayor,  you  sell,  you  traffic,  you  trade  in  human 
flesh;  and  to-day,  having  something  to  sell,  you  come  to 
what  you  think  the  best  market,  —  is  that  it  ?  " 

"You  have  said  it.  Oh,  don't  feel  embarrassed,  gen- 
eral, business  is  business  ;  and  I  am  not  ashamed  to  attend 
to  mine  !  " 

"  So  much  the  better;  but  I  'm  not  the  man  you  ought  to 
go  to.  They  've  sent  down  a  gentleman  from  Paris  who  is 
specially  charged  to  attend  to  this  matter.  When  you  can 
lay  hands  on  your  prey,  you  had  better  go  to  him  and 
sell  it." 

"So  I  will,  general.  But,"  continued  Courtin,  "as  I  did 
you  such  a  service  that  first  time,  don't  you  feel  inclined 
to  give  me  some  reward  ?  " 

"  My  good  fellow,  if  you  think  I  owe  you  anything  I  am 
ready  to  pay  it.     Speak  out  !  I  'm  listening." 


THE  GENERAL  IS  NOT  CHANGED.         301 

"It  will  be  all  the  easier  because  I  don't  ask  much." 

"Goon." 

"  Tell  me  the  sum  the  government  has  promised  to  the 
man  who  delivers  Petit-Pierre  into  your  hands." 

"Fifty  thousand  francs,  perhaps;  I  didn't  pay  much 
attention  to  it,  any  way." 

"Fifty  thousand  francs  !"  exclaimed  Courtin,  stepping 
back  as  if  he  had  been  struck.  "  Why,  fifty  thousand  francs 
is  nothing  !  " 

"I  agree  with  you  there;  it  isn't  worth  while  to  be 
infamous  for  such  a  sum  as  that.  But  you  can  say  that  to 
those  it  concerns;  as  for  you  and  me,  we  have  done  with 
each  other,  I  think.  Take  yourself  away.  Good-day .  to 
you  !  " 

And  the  general,  resuming  the  work  he  had  laid  aside 
to  receive  Courtin,  paid  not  the  slightest  attention  to  the 
bows  and  civilities  with  which  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie 
endeavored  to  make  a  proper  retreat. 

The  latter  departed  far  less  satisfied  in  mind  than  he 
was  when  he  entered.  He  had  no  doubt  whatever  that  the 
general  knew  correctly  the  exact  amount  of  the  reward, 
and  he  could  not  reconcile  what  he  had  just  heard  with 
what  the  mysterious  man  at  Aigrefeuille  had  told  him,  — 
unless  it  might  be  that  the  said  mysterious  man  was  the 
agent  sent  by  the  government  from  Paris.  He  now  gave 
up  all  idea  of  acting  without  him,  and  he  resolved,  while 
practising  the  utmost  caution,  to  let  him  know  as  soon  as 
possible  what  had  happened. 

Until  now  the  man  had  come  to  Courtin;  but  the  farmer 
had  his  address,  and  was  directed  to  write  to  him  if  any- 
thing important  occurred.  Courtin  did  not  write;  he  went 
in  person.  After  a  good  deal  of  trouble  he  managed  to 
find,  in  the  lowest  quarter  of  the  town,  at  the  farther  end 
of  a  damp  and  muddy  blind  alley  full  of  the  sordid  booths 
of  rag-pickers  and  old-clothes  men,  a  tiny  shop,  where,  fol- 
lowing certain  directions,  he  asked  for  Monsieur  Hyacinthe. 
He  was  told  to  go  up  a  ladder,  and  was  then  shown  into  a 


302  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

small  room,  niuch  cleaner  and  more  decent  than  miglit 
have  been  expected  from  the  general  appearance  of  this 
lair. 

There  he  found  the  man  from  Aigrefeuille,  who  received 
him  far  better  than  the  general  had  done;  and  with  whom 
he  had  a  long  conference. 


C0UKT1N    IS    AGAIN    DISAPPOINTE]'.  303 


XXXI. 

COURTIN    MEETS    WITH    ANOTHER   DISAPPOINTMENT. 

If  the  day  seemed  long  to  Michel,  to  Courtin  its  length 
was  intolerable;  he  thought  that  night  would  never  come. 
And  though  he  felt  he  ought  to  keep  away  from  the  rue  du 
Marché  and  the  adjacent  streets,  it  was  impossible  to  avoid 
airing  his  impatience  in  their  neighborhood. 

When  evening  came,  mindful  of  his  engagement  with 
Michel,  he  returned  to  the  tavern  of  the  Point  du  Jour. 
There  he  found  Michel  awaiting  him  eagerly.  As  soon  as 
the  young  man  saw  him  he  exclaimed  :  — 

"Ah,  Courtin,  I  am  thankful  to  see  you.  I  have  dis- 
covered the  man  who  followed  us  last  night." 

"  Hein  !  what  ?  what  did  you  say  ?  "  asked  Courtin,  mak- 
ing, in  spite  of  himself,  a  step  backward. 

"  I  have  discovered  him,  I  tell  you  !  " 

"But  the  man  —  who  is  he  ?  "  asked  Courtin. 

"A  man  in  whom  I  felt  sure  I  might  trust;  and  you 
would  have  trusted  him  too  in  my  position,  —  Joseph 
Picaut." 

"Joseph  Picaut!"  repeated  Courtin,  feigning  astonish- 
ment. 

"Yes." 

"  Where  did  you  meet  him  ?  " 

"At  this  inn,  where  he  is  hostler,  or  rather,  where  he 
is  playing  the  part  of  hostler." 

"  Why  did  he  follow  you  ?  You  can't  have  had  the  im- 
prudence to  tell  him  your  secret  ?  Ah,  young  man,  young 
man  !  "  exclaimed  Courtin  ;  "  they  may  well  say  youth  and 
imprudence  go  together.     A  former  galley-slave  !  " 


304  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  That 's  the  very  reason.  Don't  you  know  why  he  was 
sent  to  the  galleys  ?  " 

"Damn  it,  yes  !  for  highway  robbery." 

"But  it  was  in  the  time  of  the  great  war.  However, 
that 's  neither  here  nor  there.  I  gave  him  an  errand  to 
do." 

"  If  I  were  to  ask  you  what  errand,  you  'd  think  me 
inquisitive;  and  yet  it  is  my  real  interest  in  you  that 
makes  me  ask,  and  nothing  else." 

"  Oh  !  I  have  no  reason  for  concealing  the  matter  from 
you.  I  sent  him  to  let  the  captain  of  the  'Jeune  Charles  ' 
know  that  I  should  be  on  board  at  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  Well,  no  one  has  since  seen  Picaut  or  the  horse 
—  and,  by  the  bye,"  added  the  young  baron,  laughing,  "the 
horse  was  your  pony,  my  poor  Courtin  ;  your  pony,  which 
I  took  from  the  farm  and  rode  to  Nantes." 

"Oh!  oh!  "  exclaimed  Courtin,  "then  Sweetheart  is  —  " 

"Sweetheart  is  probably  lost  to  you  forever." 

"Perhaps  he  has  gone  back  to  his  stable,"  said  Courtin, 
who,  even  in  presence  of  the  grand  financial  horizon  which 
was  opening  before  him,  felt  a  profound  regret  for  the 
twenty  or  twenty-five  pistoles  at  which  he  valued  his 
pony. 

"Well,  what  I  want  to  tell  you  is,  that  if,  as  I  suppose, 
Joseph  Picaut  followed  us  he  must  now  be  on  the  watch 
about  the  neighborhood." 

"What  object  has  he?"  inquired  Courtin.  "If  he 
wanted  to  deliver  you  up  nothing  could  have  been  easier 
than  to  bring  the  gendarmes  here." 

Michel  shook  his  head. 

"  No,  —  do  you  say  no  ?  " 

"  I  say  it  is  not  I  whom  he  is  after,  Courtiu  ;  it  is  not  on 
my  account  he  watched  us  yesterday." 

"  Why  so  ?  " 

"  Because  the  price  on  my  head  would  not  pay  him  for 
his  treachery." 

"  But  whom  else  can  he  be  spying  on  ?  "  said  the  farmer, 


COUKTIN   IS   AGAIN    DISAPPOINTED.  305 

calling  up  all  the  vacant  simplicity  he  was  capable  of 
imprinting  on  his  face  and  accent. 

"  A  Yendéan  leader  whom  I  was  anxious  to  save  while 
making  my  own  escape,"  replied  Michel,  beginning  to  per- 
ceive whither  Courtin's  questions  were  leading  him,  — 
though  he  was  not  sorry  to  admit  the  latter  into  half  his 
secret  in  order  to  use  him  when  occasion  came. 

"Ah,  ha!"  exclaimed  Courtin;  "and  you  think  he  has 
discovered  the  hiding-place  of  the  Yendéan  leader  ?  That 
would  be  a  misfortune,  Monsieur  Michel." 

"No;  he  only  got  to  the  outworks,  as  it  were;  but  I  am 
afraid,  now  that  he  is  once  on  the  scent,  he  may  have 
better  luck  this  time." 

"  This  time,  —  how  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"Why,  to-night,  if  he  watches  us,  he  will  find  out  I 
have  a  meeting  with  Mademoiselle  Mary." 

" Mordieu  !  you  're  right." 

"And  that  makes  me  very  uneasy,"  said  Michel. 

"But  I  shall  be  on  the  watch;  and  if  you  are  followed 
I  '11  whistle  in  time  for  you  to  get  away." 

"And  you?" 

Courtin  laughed. 

"Oh  !  I  —  I  don't  risk  anything.  My  opinions  are 
well-known,  thank  God;  and  in  my  capacity  as  mayor  I 
can  have  all  the  dangerous  companions  I  choose." 

"Evil  is  good  sometimes,"  said  Michel,  laughing  in  his 
turn.     "But  listen,  what  time  is  that  ?" 

"Striking  nine  from  the  clock  at  Bouffai." 

"Then,  come  on,  Courtin." 

Courtin  took  his  hat,  Michel  his,  and  they  both  went 
out  and  were  soon  at  the  corner  where  Michel  had  met  his 
farmer  the  night  before.  The  latter  stood  with  his  right 
to  the  rue  du  Marché  and  his  left  toward  the  alley  into 
which  opened  the  green  door  he  had  marked  with  a  cross. 

"Stay  there,  Courtin,"  said  Michel.  "I '11  wait  at  the 
farther  end  of  this  alley;  I  don't  know  which  way  Mary 
means  to  come.     If  she  passes  you,  direct  her  toward  me; 

VOL.   II.  —  20 


306  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

if  she  comes  my  way,  do  you  move  up  nearer  to  us,  so  as  to 
be  ready  in  case  of  need." 

"  Don't  trouble  about  that,  "  said  Courtin,  as  he  settled 
himself  on  the  watch. 

Courtin  was  now  at  the  summit  of  happiness;  his  plan 
had  completely  succeeded.  In  one  way  or  another  he  was 
certain  to  come  in  contact  with  Mary  ;  Mary  was  the  inti- 
mate attendant  on  Petit-Pierre;  he  would  fellow  Mary 
when  she  left  Michel,  and  he  had  no  doubt  that  the  young 
girl,  unconscious  of  being  tracked,  would  herself  betray 
the  hiding-place  of  the  princess  by  going  there. 

Half-past  nine  o'clock  ringing  from  all  the  belfries  in 
Nantes  surprised  Courtin  in  the  midst  of  these  reflections. 
Their  metallic  vibrations  were  hardly  stilled  before  he 
heard  a  light  step  coming  up  on  his  right;  he  went  in  that 
direction,  and  saw  a  young  peasant-woman  wrapped  in  a 
mantle  and  carrying  a  package  in  her  hand,  whom  he 
recognized  to  be  Mary.  The  young  girl,  seeing  a  strange 
man  apparently  on  the  watch,  hesitated.  Courtin  went  up 
to  her  and  made  her  recognize  him. 

"It  is  all  right,  Mademoiselle  Mary,"  he  said,  replying 
to  her  relieved  gesture  ;  "  but  I  'm  not  the  one  you  are 
looking  for,  am  I  ?  You  want  Monsieur  le  baron;  well, 
there  he  is,  waiting  for  you  down  there." 

And  he  pointed  with  his  finger  to  the  alley.  The  girl 
thanked  him  with  a  gesture  of  her  head  and  moved  hastily 
away  in  the  direction  given  her.  As  for  Courtin,  con- 
vinced that  the  interview  would  be  a  long  one,  he  sat 
down,  philosophically,  on  a  milestone,  prepared  to  wait. 
Prom  that  milestone,  however,  he  could  keep  the  two 
young  people  in  sight  while  dreaming  of  his  coming 
fortune,  which  now  seemed  a  certainty,  —  for  he  held  in 
Mary  one  end  of  the  thread  that  would  lead  him  through 
the  labyrinth;  and  this  time,  he  vowed,  the  thread  should 
not  break. 

But  he  had  scarcely  begun  to  set  up  the  scaffolding  of 
glorious  dreams  on  the  golden  clouds  of  his  imagination, 


COURTIN   IS   AGAIN    DISAPPOINTED.  307 

when  the  two  young  people,  after  exchanging  a  few  sen- 
tences, returned  in  his  direction.  They  passed  in  front  of 
him;  the  young  baron  had  Mary  on  his  arm  and  was  carry- 
ing the  little  package  the  farmer  had  lately  seen  in  Mary's 
hand.     Michel  nodded  to  him. 

"  Ho,  ho  !  "  thought  Courtin,  "  is  it  going  to  be  as  easy 
as  this  ?  There  's  absolutely  no  credit  in  it."  And  he 
followed  the  lovers  on  a  sign  from  Michel,  keeping  at  a 
short  distance  behind  them. 

Presently,  however,  he  began  to  feel  a  slight  uneasiness. 
Instead  of  going  to  the  upper  town,  where  Courtin  felt 
instinctively  that  the  princess  was  hidden,  the  pair  turned 
down  toward  the  river.  The  farmer  followed  their  move- 
ments with  deep  anxiety.  Soon,  however,  he  began  to 
fancy  that  Mary  had  some  errand  in  that  direction,  and 
that  Michel  was  only  accompanying  her. 

Nevertheless,  his  anxiety  again  deepened  when,  on 
turning  the  corner  of  the  quay,  he  saw  the  young  pair 
making  straight  for  the  tavern  of  the  Point  du  Jour, 
which  they  presently  entered.  Unable  to  restrain  himself 
any  longer  he  ran  hastily  forward  and  overtook  the  baron. 

"Ah,  here  you  are,  — just  in  time  !  "  said  Michel. 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  asked  the  spy. 

"  Courtin,  my  dear  fellow,  I  'm  the  happiest  man  on 
earth  !  " 

"Why  so?" 

"Quick  !  saddle  me  two  horses  !  " 

"Two  horses?" 

"Yes." 

"And  Mademoiselle  Mary  ?  don't  you  mean  to  take  her 
back  ?  " 

"  ~No,  Courtin,  I  shall  carry  her  off  !  " 

"Where?" 

"To  Banlceuvre;  where  we  shall  make  some  plan  to  get 
away  together." 

"  But  will  Mademoiselle  Mary  desert  —  " 

Courtin   stopped   short;    he    was   about   to  betray  him- 


308  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

self.  But  Michel  was  much  too  happy  and  excited  to  ue 
distrustful. 

"  Mademoiselle  Mary  will  not  desert  any  one,  my  dear 
Courtin;  we  are  to  send  Bertha  in  her  place.  Don't  you 
see  that  I  can't  be  the  one  to  tell  Bertha  I  do  not  love 
her  ?  " 

"  Then  who  will  tell  her  ?  " 

"Don't  trouble  yourself  about  that,  Courtin;  somebody 
will  tell  her.     Now,  quick  !  saddle  those  horses  !  " 

"  Have  you  any  horses  here  ?  " 

"No,  none  of  my  own;  but  there  are  always  horses, 
don't  you  understand,  for  those  who  travel  for  the  good  of 
the  cause." 

And  Michel  pushed  Courtin  toward  the  stable,  where, 
in  fact,  two  horses  were  munching  their  oats  as  if  awaiting 
the  young  people. 

Just  as  Michel  was  putting  the  saddle  on  the  second 
horse  the  master  of  the  inn  came  down,  followed  by  Mary. 

"I  come  from  the  South  and  am  going  to  Bosny," 
Michel  said  to  him,  continuing  to  saddle  one  of  the  horses, 
while  Courtin  was  saddling,  but  more  slowly,  the  other. 
Courtin  heard  the  password,  but  did  not  comprehend  it. 

"Very  good,"  said  the  master  of  the  inn,  nodding  his 
head  in  sign  of  intelligence. 

Then,  as  Courtin  seemed  rather  behindhand,  he  helped 
him  to  saddle  the  other  horse  and  rejoin  Michel. 

"Monsieur  Michel,"  said  Courtin,  making  a  last  effort, 
"why  go  to  Banlœuvre  instead  of  to  La  Logerie  ?  You 
would  be  more  comfortable  at  my  house." 

Michel  questioned  Mary  by  a  look. 

"  Oh  !  no,  no,  no  !  "  she  said.  "  Remember,  my  dear 
friend,"  she  whispered,  "that  Bertha  will  be  certain  to 
return  there  to  get  news  of  us,  and  to  know  why  the  vessel 
was  not  at  the  place  agreed  upon;  and  I  wouldn't  for  all 
the  world  see  her  before  the  friend  you  know  of  speaks  to 
her.  I  think  I  should  die  of  shame  and  grief  if  I  saw  her 
just  now." 


COURTIN    IS    AGAIN    DISAPPOINTED.  309 

At  Bertha's  name,  which  he  overheard,  Courtin  raised 
his  head  as  a  horse  raises  his  to  the  sound  of  trumpets. 

"  Mademoiselle  does  not  want  to  go  to  La  Logerie  ?  "  he 
said. 

"But,  Mary,"  said  Michel,  hesitating. 

"  What  ?  "  asked  the  girl. 

"  Who  will  give  your  sister  the  letter  that  summons  her 
to  Nantes  ?  " 

"As  for  that,"  said  Courtin,  "it  isn't  hard  to  find  a 
messenger.  If  there  is  anything  you  want  said  or  done, 
Monsieur  Michel,   I  '11  undertake  it." 

Michel  hesitated;  but  he,  like  Mary,  dreaded  Bertha's 
first  outbreak  of  anger.  Again  he  looked  at  Mary;  she 
replied  with  an  assenting  sign. 

"  Then  we  will  go  to  Banlœuvre  ;  and  you  must  take  the 
letter,"  said  Michel,  giving  Courtin  a  paper.  "If  you 
have  anything  to  say  to  us,  Courtin,  you  will  find  us  there 
for  the  present." 

"Ah,  poor  Bertha  !  poor  Bertha  !  "  said  Mary,  springing 
on  her  horse.  "How  shall  I  ever  console  myself  for  my 
happiness  ?  " 

The  two  young  people  were  now  in  their  saddles;  they 
made  a  friendly  sign  to  the  master  of  the  inn  ;  Michel  com- 
mended the  letter  once  more  to  Courtin's  care,  and  then 
they  both  rode  away  from  the  tavern  of  the  Point  du 
Jour. 

At  the  end  of  the  pont  Rousseau  they  came  near  riding 
over  a  man  who,  in  spite  of  the  heat  of  the  weather,  was 
wrapped  in  a  sort  of  mantle  which  almost  hid  his  face. 
This  sombre  apparition  alarmed  Michel;  he  quickened  his 
horse's  pace  and  told  Mary  to  do  the  same.  After  going 
about  a  hundred  yards  Michel  turned  round.  The  stranger 
had  stopped,  and,  in  spite  of  the  darkness,  was  watching 
them. 

"He  is  looking  at  us  !  "  said  Michel,  feeling  instinctively 
that  they  had  just  passed  some  great  danger. 

After  the  unknown  man  had  lost  sight  of  the  riders  he 


310  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

continued  his  way  to  Nantes.  At  the  door  of  the  Point 
du  Jour  he  stopped,  looked  about  him  as  if  in  search  of 
some  one,  and  saw  a  man  reading  a  letter  by  the  light  of 
a  lantern.  He  went  up  to  the  man,  who,  at  the  sound  of 
his  steps,  looked  round. 

"Ah,  it's  you!"  said  Courtin.  "Faith,  you've  just 
missed  getting  here  too  soon;  a  minute  earlier  and  you 
would  have  found  yourself  in  company  you  would  n't  have 
liked." 

"  Who  were  those  two  young  people  who  nearly  knocked 
me  over  on  the  bridge?  " 

"The  very  ones  I  mean." 

"Well,  what 's  the  news,  —  good,  or  bad?" 

"Both;  but  more  good  than  bad." 

"Is  it  to  be  to-night?" 

"No;  the  affair  is  postponed." 

"  You  mean  failed,  blunderer  !  " 

Courtin  smiled. 

"  It  is  true  that  luck  has  been  against  me  since  yester- 
day; but  no  matter  !  we  must  be  satisfied  with  walking, 
not  running,  that 's  all.  Though  to-day  is  a  failure,  in 
view  of  immediate  results,  I  would  n't  take  twenty  thou- 
sand francs  for  it." 

"  Ah,  ha  !  you  are  sure  of  that  ?  " 

"Yes,  very  sure.  The  proof  is  that  I've  got  hold  of 
something  already.  " 

"What?" 

"This,"  said  Courtin,  showing  the  letter  he  had  just 
unsealed  and  read. 

"  A  letter  ?  " 

"A  letter." 

"What 's  in  it  ?  "  said  the  man  in  the  cloak,  putting  out 
his  hand  to  take  the  paper. 

"  One  moment.  We  will  read  it  together.  I  prefer  to 
hold  it,  because  it  is  intrusted  to  me  for  delivery." 

"Well,  let  us  read  it,"  said  the  man. 

They  both  went  up  to  the  lantern  and  read  as  follows:  — 


COUKTIN   IS   AGAIN   DISAPPOINTED.  311 

Come  to  me  as  soon  as  possible  ;  you  know  the  passwords. 
Your  affectionate 

Petit-Pierre. 

"  To  whom  is  that  letter  addressed  ?  "  asked  the  man  in 
the  cloak. 

"To  Mademoiselle  Bertha  de  Souday." 

"  Her  name  is  not  on  the  cover,  nor  at  the  bottom  of  the 
page." 

"Because  a  letter  might  be  lost." 

"  And  you  are  commissioned  to  deliver  that  letter  ?  " 

"Yes." 

The  man  gave  a  second  glance  at  the  paper. 

"The  writing  is  certainly  hers,"  he  said.  "Ah  !  if  you 
had  only  allowed  me  to  accompany  you  we  should  have  her 
by  this  time." 

"  What  does  that  matter,  if  you  are  sure  of  her  later  ?  " 

"  Yes,  true.     When  shall  I  see  you  again  ?  " 

"Day  after  to-morrow." 

"  Here,  or  in  the  country  ?  " 

"At  Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu;  that  is  half  way 
between  Nantes  and  my  house." 

"I  hope  next  time  you  won't  stir  me  up  for  nothing." 

"I  promise  you  that." 

"Try  to  keep  your  word;  I  keep  mine.  Here  's  the 
money.  See,  I  hold  it  ready,  so  that  you  may  not  have  to 
wait  for  it." 

He  opened  his  wallet  and  showed  the  farmer,  compla- 
cently, a  mass  of  bank-bills  amounting  probably  to  a 
hundred  thousand  francs. 

"  Oh,  "  said  Courtin,  "  only  paper  !  " 

"Paper,  of  course,  but  signed  'Garat;'  that  is  a  good 
signature." 

"jSTo  matter,"  said  Courtin;   "I  prefer  gold." 

"Well,  gold  you  shall  have,"  said  the  other,  replacing 
the  portfolio  in  his  pocket  and  crossing  his  mantle  over 
his  coat. 

If  the  pair  had  not  been  so  engrossed  in  their  conversa- 


312  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

tion  they  would  have  seen  that  a  peasant  had  climbed  the 
wall  between  the  street  and  the  court-yard  by  the  help  of 
a  cart  which  stood  outside,  and  was  listening  to  what  they 
said,  and  gazing  at  the  bank-notes  with  an  air  which 
implied  that  in  Courtin's  place  he  would  have  been  quite 
satisfied  with  Garat's  signature. 

"Very  good;  then  the  day  after  to-morrow  at  Saint- 
Philbert,"  repeated  the  man  in  the  cloak. 

"Day  after  to-morrow." 

"What  time?" 

"Evening,  of  course." 

"  Say  seven  o'clock.  The  first  comer  will  wait  for  the 
other." 

"But  you  '11  bring  the  money?  " 

"You  mean  the  gold?  yes." 

"All  right." 

"Do  you  expect  to  bring  the  matter  to  conclusion 
then  ?  " 

"I  hope  to.     It  costs  nothing  to  hope." 

"Day  after  to-morrow,  at  Saint-Philbert,  seven  o'clock," 
muttered  the  peasant  on  the  wall,  letting  himself  gently 
down  into  the  street.  "We  '11  be  there."  Then  he  added 
with  a  laugh  that  sounded  terribly  like  the  grinding  of 
teeth:  "When  a  man  is  branded  he  ought  to  earn  his 
label." 


THE   MARQUIS   DE    SOUDAY    DRAGS    FOR   OYSTERS.      313 


XXXII. 

THE   MARQUIS    DE  SOUDAY   DRAGS   FOR   OYSTERS   AND   BRINGS 
UP   PICAUT. 

Bertha,  who  had  left  the  farmhouse  at  La  Logerie  at  the 
same  time  as  Michel,  reached,  her  father  after  a  tramp  of 
about  two  hours.  She  found  him  extraordinarily  depressed 
and  utterly  disgusted  with  the  hermit's  life  he  was  leading 
in  Maître  Jacques'  warren,  though  the  latter  had  arranged 
it  for  his  personal  comfort  and  installed  him  safely  in  it. 

From  a  feeling  that  was  purely  chivalrous,  Monsieur  de 
Souday  had  not  been  willing  to  leave  the  country  so  long 
as  Petit-Pierre  was  in  it,  and  in  danger.  Therefore,  when 
Bertha  came  to  him  with  the  news  of  the  duchess's  prob- 
able departure,  the  old  Vendéan  gentleman  resigned  him- 
self, though  without  heartiness,  to  follow  the  advice  of 
General  Dermoncourt  and  depart  for  the  third  time  to 
foreign  lands. 

He  and  his  daughter  left  the  forest  of  Touvois  at  once. 
Maître  Jacques,  whose  hand  was  now  nearly  well,  though 
it  lacked  two  fingers,  wished  to  accompany  them  to  the 
coast  and  assist  in  their  embarkation. 

It  was  midnight  when  the  three  travellers,  following 
the  high-road  from  Machecoul,  reached  the  heights  above 
the  valley  of  Souday.  As  the  marquis  looked  at  the  four 
weathercocks  on  his  four  towers,  which  were  shimmering 
in  the  moonlight  above  the  sea  of  verdure  which  sur- 
rounded them,  he  sighed.  Bertha  heard  him  and  came 
nearer  to  his  side. 

"What  is  it,  father?"  she  said.  "What  are  you 
thinking  of  ?  " 


314  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Of  many  things,  my  poor  child,"  he  answered,  shaking 
his  head. 

"Don't  take  gloomy  thoughts  into  your  head,  father. 
You  are  still  young  and  vigorous;  you'll  see  the  house 
again  some  day." 

"Yes,"  said  the  marquis,  with  another  sigh,  "but  —  "  he 
stopped,  half  choking. 

"But  what  ?  "  asked  Bertha. 

"I  shall  never  see  my  poor  Jean  Oullier  again." 

"Alas  !  "  said  the  girl. 

"Oh,  house, — poor  house!"  said  the  marquis;  "how 
empty  you  will  seem  to  me  without  him  !  " 

Though  there  was  really  more  of  egotism  than  attach- 
ment to  his  faithful  servant  in  the  marquis's  regret,  if 
Jean  Oullier  could  have  heard  that  lament  it  would  cer- 
tainly have  touched  him  deeply. 

Bertha  resumed  the  subject. 

"Do  you  know,  father,"  she  said,  "I  can't  help  fancy- 
ing, though  I  am  sure  I  don't  know  why,  that  our  poor 
friend,  in  spite  of  all  they  say,  is  not  dead.  It  seems  to 
me  that  if  he  were  really  dead  I  should  have  wept  more 
for  him;  a  secret  hope,  which  I  can't  explain,  comes  and 
stops  my  tears." 

"That 's  odd,"  interrupted  Maître  Jacques;  "but  I  have 
just  the  same  feeling.  No,  Jean  Oullier  is  not  dead;  and 
I  have  something  better  than  presumption  to  go  upon,  —  I 
saw  the  body  they  said  was  his,  and  I  could  n't  recognize 
it." 

"Then  what  has  become  of  him  ?  "  asked  the  marquis. 

"Faith,  I  don't  know!"  replied  Maître  Jacques;  "but 
I  keep  expecting  every  day  to  get  news  of  him." 

The  marquis  sighed  again.  At  this  moment  they  were 
passing  through  an  angle  of  the  forest.  Perhaps  he  was 
thinking  of  the  hecatombs  of  game  he  and  his  faithful 
keeper  had  piled  beneath  those  verdant  arches,  —  a  sight, 
alas!  he  might  never  see  again.  Perhaps  the  few  words 
said  by  Maître  Jacques  had  opened  his  heart  to  a  renewed 


THE  MAEQDIS  DE  SOUDAY  DRAGS  FOR  OYSTERS.   315 

hope  of  recovering  his  old  friend.  The  latter  supposition 
is  the  more  probable,  for  he  urged  the  master  of  rabbits  to 
make  most  particular  inquiries  about  Jean  Oullier's  fate, 
and  to  let  him  know  the  result. 

When  they  reached  the  seashore  the  marquis  would  not 
wholly  conform  to  the  plan  laid  down  by  Michel  and 
Bertha  for  his  embarkation.  He  feared  that  if  they  fol- 
lowed the  shore  along  the  bay  of  Bourgneuf,  as  agreed 
upon,  they  might  draw  the  attention  of  the  coast-guard 
cutter  to  the  schooner;  nothing  would  induce  him  to  incur 
the  reproach  of  compromising  Petit-Pierre's  safety  for 
personal  considerations,  and  he  decided  that  the  proper 
thing  to  do  was  for  himself  and  daughter  to  go  out  to  sea 
and  meet  the  "Jeune  Charles." 

Maître  Jacques,  who  had  friends  and  accomplices  every- 
where, soon  found  a  fisherman  who  was  willing,  for  the 
consideration  of  a  few  louis,  to  take  them  in  his  boat  to 
the  schooner.  The  little  craft  was  drawn  up  on  the  shore. 
The  marquis  and  Bertha,  instructed  by  Maître  Jacques, 
who  was  familiar  with  all  smuggling  manœuvres,  slipped 
into  it  and  escaped  the  eyes  of  the  custom-house  officers 
who  watched  the  coast.  An  hour  later  the  tide  floated  the 
boat;  the  owner  aud  his  two  sons,  who  served  as  crew,  got 
into  her  and  put  out  to  sea. 

As  it  still  wanted  half  an  hour  till  daybreak,  the  mar- 
quis did  not  wait  till  the  boat  was  in  the  offing  to  come 
out  of  his  hiding-place  in  the  little  deck  cabin,  where  he 
was  even  more  cribbed  and  confined  than  in  Maître 
Jacques'  burrow.  As  soon  as  the  fisherman  saw  him  he 
began  to  ask  questions. 

"You  say,  monsieur,  that  the  vessel  you  expect  is  com- 
ing from  the  mouth  of  the  Loire  ?  " 

"Yes,"  replied  the  marquis. 

"At  what  hour  was  she  to  leave  Nantes  ?  " 

"Prom  three  to  five  this  morning,"  said  Bertha. 

The  fisherman  consulted  the  wind. 

"The  wind  is  southwest,"  he  said;  "the  tide  was  high 


316  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

at.  three  o'clock.  We  ought  to  meet  them  between  eight 
and  nine;  it  will  take  them  four  hours  to  get  here.  Mean- 
time, in  order  not  to  attract  attention  from  the  coast-guard, 
we  had  better  throw  over  some  drag-nets  and  make  a  pre- 
tence of  fishing,  to  explain  our  being  here." 

"  Make  a  pretence  !  "  cried  the  marquis  ;  "  why,  I  should 
like  to  fish  in  good  earnest  !  All  my  life  I  have  wanted 
the  opportunity  for  that  sport;  and  faith,  as  I  can't  hunt 
in  Machecoul  this  year,  it  is  a  fine  compensation  which 
Heaven  sends  me,  —  too  fine  to  miss  it  !  " 

In  spite  of  Bertha's  cautions  —  for  she  feared  her  father's 
great  height  might  attract  attention  —  the  marquis  began 
to  work  with  the  fisherman  at  once. 

The  net  was  thrown  out  and  allowed  to  drag  for  some 
time  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea;  but  before  long,  the  Marquis 
de  Souday,  who  had  valiantly  hauled  on  the  ropes  to  bring 
the  net  to  the  surface,  was  as  delighted  as  a  child  with 
the  shining  mass  of  eels,  turbot,  plaice,  skate,  and  oysters 
which  came  up  palpitating  from  the  depths  of  the  sea.  He 
at  once  forgot  his  griefs,  his  hopes,  his  memories  ;  he  forgot 
Souday  and  the  forest  of  Machecoul,  the  marches  of  Saint- 
Philbert,  the  great  moors;  and  with  them  he  forgot  wild- 
boars,  deer,  foxes,  hares,  partridges,  and  snipe,  and  thought 
only  of  the  shining  population  with  smooth  or  scaly  skins 
which  each  throw  of  the  net  produced  before  his  eyes. 

Daylight  came. 

Bertha,  who  till  then  had  sat  in  the  bows  absorbed  in 
thought,  watching  the  waves  as  they  parted  at  the  prow  of 
the  little  vessel  and  floated  away  in  two  phosphorescent 
furrows, — Bertha  now  climbed  on  a  coil  of  rope  to  examine 
the  horizon. 

Through  the  morning  mists,  thicker  at  the  mouth  of  the 
river  than  elsewhere,  she  could  see  the  tall  masts  and 
spars  of  several  vessels  ;  but  none  of  them  carried  the  blue 
pennant  by  which  they  were  to  recognize  the  "Jeune 
Charles."  She  observed  this  to  the  fisherman,  who  assured 
her,  with  an  oath,  that  it  was  impossible  for  the  schooner, 


THE    MARQUIS   DE    SOUDAY    DRAGS   FOR    OYSTERS.      317 

if  she  left  Nantes  during  the  night,  to  have  made  the  open 
sea  already. 

The  marquis  did  not  give  the  worthy  fisherman  and  his 
men  much  time  for  discussion,  for  he  was  so  pleased  with 
his  taste  of  their  trade  that  he  allowed  no  spare  time 
between  the  throws  of  the  net;  and  any  little  pause  that 
occurred  he  filled  up  with  questions  to  the  old  sailor  on 
the  rudiments  of  nautical  science. 

It  was  in  the  course  of  this  instructive  conversation  that 
the  fisherman  requested  him  to  observe  that  by  throwing 
the  net  as  a  drag  they  were  forced  to  make  long  tacks,  and 
that  this  method  of  proceeding  would  end  by  leading  them 
astray  from  their  post  of  observation.  But  the  marquis, 
with  that  careless  indifference  which  was  the  basis  of  his 
character,  paid  no  attention  to  the  skipper's  argument,  and 
continued  to  fill  the  hold  of  the  boat  with  the  products  of 
the  haul. 

The  morning  went  by.  It  was  ten  o'clock,  and  still  no 
vessel  approached  them.  Bertha  became  very  uneasy  ;  she 
mentioned  her  fears  to  her  father  several  times,  and  at 
last  with  so  much  urgency  that  the  marquis  could  do  no 
less  than  consent  to  go  nearer  to  the  mouth  of  the  river. 
He  profited  by  the  manœuvre,  however,  to  make  the  old 
sailor  teach  him  how  to  haul  his  wind,  —  that  is  to  say, 
how  to  trim  his  sails  so  as  to  make  as  slight  an  angle  with 
the  keel  as  the  rigging  would  allow.  They  were  in  the 
most  tangled  part  of  the  demonstration  when  Bertha 
uttered  a  cry. 

She  had  just  seen  at  a  few  hundred  feet  from  the  boat  a 
large  vessel  with  all  sail  spread,  to  which  she  had  hitherto 
paid  no  attention,  as  it  did  not  fly  the  promised  signal, 
and  was  now  partly  hidden  by  the  jib  of  the  boat. 

"Look  out  !  look  out!  "  she  cried;  "there  's  a  ship  com- 
ing down  upon  us  !  " 

The  fisherman  saw  in  an  instant  the  danger  that  threat- 
ened them,  and  springing  to  the  helm  he  wrenched  it  from 
the  hand  of  the  marquis,  then,  without  observing  that  he 


318  THE    LAST   VENDÉF-. 

knocked  the  latter  flat  on  the  deck,  he  managed  to  get  the 
boat  round  to  windward  of  the  ship,  which  was  close  upon 
them.  Rapid  as  the  manœuvre  was,  he  could  not  prevent 
a  slight  collision;  the  boom  of  the  lugger's  mainsail  grazed 
the  side  of  the  schooner  with  a  loud  noise,  her  gaff  was 
entangled  for  a  moment  with  the  hitter's  bowsprit;  the 
boat  heeled  over,  shipped  a  sea,  and  if  the  skipper's  rapid 
manoeuvre  had  not  enabled  him  to  catch  the  wind,  she 
might  not  have  righted  as  rapidly  as  she  did,  or  perhaps 
not  have  righted  at  all. 

"  The  devil  take  that  damned  coaster  !  "  cried  the  old 
fisherman.  "  Another  minute  and  we  should  have  gone  to 
the  bottom  in  exchange  for  the  fish  we  've  just  caught  !  " 

"  Go  about  !  go  about  !  "  cried  the  marquis,  exasperated 
by  his  fall.  "  After  him  !  the  devil  take  me  if  I  don't 
board  him  and  ask  the  captain  what  he  means  by  such 
insolence  !  " 

"Do  you  expect  me,"  said  the  old  sailor,  "with  my  one 
sail  and  two  poor  jibs,  to  overhaul  a  craft  of  that  kind? 
Look  at  his  canvas,  the  villain  !  —  every  stitch  set  !  And 
see  how  it  draws  !  " 

"Yet  we  must  overtake  him  !  "  cried  Bertha,  running  aft. 
"It  is  the  'Jeune  Charles!  '  " 

And  she  showed  her  father  a  broad,  white  band  at  the 
stern  of  the  other  vessel  on  which  could  be  read,  in  letters 
of  gold. "Le  Jeune  Charles." 

"  Faith,  you  are  right,  Bertha  !  "  cried  the  marquis. 
"  Go  about,  my  friend,  go  about  !  But  why  does  n't  he 
carry  the  signal  agreed  upon  with  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie  ? 
And  why,  instead  of  steering  for  the  bay  of  Bourgneuf,  is 
he  heading  east  ?  " 

"Perhaps  some  accident  has  happened,"  said  Bertha, 
turning  pale. 

"  God  grant  it  may  not  be  to  Petit-Pierre  !  "  muttered 
the  marquis. 

Bertha  admired  her  father's  stoicism,  but  in  her  heart 
she  murmured  :  "  God  grant  it  may  not  be  to  Michel  !  " 


THE    MARQUIS    DE    SOUDAY    DRAGS   FOR   OYSTERS.      319 

"Never  mind!"  said  the  marquis,  "we  must  find  out 
what  all  this  means." 

The  lugger  had  meantime  gone  about,  and  again  catch- 
ing the  wind,  began  to  move  rapidly  through  the  water; 
this  manœuvre  on  a  vessel  of  her  size  could  be  done  so 
quickly  that  the  schooner,  in  spite  of  lier  volume  of  sail, 
did  not  get  far  in  advance.  The  fisherman  was  able  to 
hail  her. 

The  captain  appeared  on  the  poop. 

"Are  you  the  'Jeune  Charles'  from  Nantes?"  asked 
the  skipper  of  the  boat,  making  a  trumpet  of  his  two 
hands. 

"  What 's  that  to  you  ?  "  answered  the  captain  of  the 
schooner,  whose  good  humor  did  not  seem  to  be  restored 
by  the  certainty  of  having  evaded  the  clutches  of  the 
law. 

"I  have  folks  aboard  for  you  !  "  cried  the  fisherman. 

"More  messengers  !  A  thousand  devils!  I  tell  you  if 
you  bring  me  any  more  such  fellows  like  those  I  have  had 
this  night,  I  '11  run  you  down,  you  old  oyster-dredger, 
before  I  let  'em  aboard  !  " 

"No,  they  are  passengers  !  Aren't  you  looking  out  for 
passengers  ?  " 

"  I  'm  looking  out  for  a  good  wind  to  take  me  round  Cape. 
Finisterre  !  " 

"Let  me  come  alongside,"  said  the  fisherman,  at  Bertha's 
suggestion. 

The  captain  of  the  "  Jeune  Charles  "  looked  at  the  sea, 
and  not  perceiving  between  himself  and  the  coast  anything 
to  warrant  apprehension,  and  desirous,  moreover,  to  know 
if  the  passengers  asking  to  come  aboard  were  those  for 
whom  his  vessel  was  chartered,  he  did  as  the  fisherman 
requested,  hauled  down  his  foresail  and  mainsail  and 
brought-to  his  vessel  sufficiently  to  throw  a  line  to  the 
lugger  and  bring  her  alongside. 

"  Now,  then  !  "  cried  the  captain,  leaning  over  his  bul- 
warks,  "  what 's  all  this  about  ?  " 


320  THE    LAST   VENDEE. 

"Ask  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie  to  come  and  speak  to  us," 
said  Bertha. 

"Monsieur  de  la  Logerie  is  not  aboard  of  me,"  replied 
the  captain. 

"But,"  returned  Bertha,  in  a  troubled  voice,  "at  any 
rate,  you  have  two  ladies,  have  n't  you  ?  " 

"Ladies  or  passengers,  I  have  n't  any,"  said  the  captain; 
"except  a  rascal  in  irons  down  in  the  hold,  where  he  is 
cursing  and  swearing  fit  to  take  the  masts  out  of  the  ship 
and  make  the  bulkhead  he  's  lashed  to  tremble." 

"Good  God!"  cried  Bertha,  trembling  herself.  "Do 
you  know  if  any  accident  has  happened  to  the  persons 
who  were  to  embark  on  your  ship  ?  " 

"Faith,  my  pretty  young  lady,"  said  the  captain,  "if 
you  would  tell  me  what  all  this  means  you  would  oblige 
me  greatly;  for  the  devil  is  in  it  if  I  can  make  out  any- 
thing about  it.  Last  night  two  men  came  on  board,  both 
from  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie,  with  two  different  messages  : 
one  ordered  me  to  sail  at  once;  the  other  told  me  to  stay 
where  I  was.  One  of  these  men  was  an  honest  farmer,  —  a 
mayor,  I  think,  for  he  showed  me  a  bit  of  a  tricolor  scarf. 
It  was  he  who  told  me  to  up  anchor  and  be  off  as  fast  as  I 
could.  The  other,  who  wanted  me  to  stay,  was  an  old 
galley-slave.  I  put  faith  in  the  most  respectable  of  the 
two,  for,  after  all,  his  advice  was  safest,  and  I  came  away." 

"  My  God  !  "  exclaimed  Bertha,  "  it  must  have  been 
Courtin;  some  accident  has  happened  to  Monsieur  de  la 
Logerie  !  " 

"  Do  you  want  to  see  the  other  man  ?  "  asked  the 
captain. 

"Whatman?"  said  the  marquis. 

"  The  one  I  've  got  below  in  irons.  You  may  recognize 
him,  and  then  we  shall  get  at  the  truth  of  this  business,  — ■ 
though  it  is  too  late  now  to  do  any  good." 

"Too  late  to  get  away, —  yes,  that  may  be,"  said  the 
marquis;  "but  not  too  late  to  save  our  friends  if  they 
are  in  any  peril.     Show  us  the  man  !  " 


THE   MARQUIS    DE    SOUDAY    DRAGS    FOR   OYSTERS.       321 

The  captain  gave  an  order,  and  a  few  seconds  later 
Joseph  Picaut  was  brought  on  deck.  He  was  still  chained 
and  bound;  but,  in  spite  of  his  bonds,  he  had  no  sooner 
caught  sight  of  the  coast  of  La  Vendée,  which  he  thought 
he  was  fated  never  to  see  again,  than,  without  reckoning- 
distance,  or  the  impossibility  of  swimming,  bound  as  he 
was,  he  tried  to  escape  his  captors  and  fling  himself  into 
the  sea. 

This  happened  on  the  starboard  side  forward,  so  that 
the  passengers  in  the  lugger,  which  was  now  to  leeward 
near  the  stern  of  the  vessel,  could  not  see  what  happened  ; 
but  they  heard  Joseph  Picaut's  cry  and  knew  that  a  strug- 
gle of  some  kind  was  taking  place  on  the  schooner.  The 
lisherman  pushed  his  boat  along  the  side  of  the  ship,  and 
they  then  saw  Joseph  Picaut  struggling  in  the  grasp  of 
four  men. 

"  Let  me  jump  into  the  water  !  "  he  was  shouting.  "  I  \i 
rather  die  at  once  than  rot  in  that  hole  !  " 

He  might  possibly  have  succeeded  in  flinging  himself 
overboard  if  he  had  not  at  that  instant  recognized  the  faces 
of  the  Marquis  de  Souday  and  Bertha,  who  were  looking 
up  at  him  in  amazement.  "  Ah,  Monsieur  le  marquis  !  ah, 
Mademoiselle  Bertha!"  cried  Picaut;  "you  will  save  me, 
won't  you  ?  It  is  for  executing  Monsieur  Michel's  orders 
that  this  brute  of  a  captain  treats  me  as  he  does  ;  and  the 
lies  of  that  scoundrel  Courtin  are  at  the  bottom  of  it." 

"Now,  then,  I  want  to  know  the  truth  about  all  this," 
interposed  the  captain.  "If  you  can  relieve  me  of  that 
blaspheming  fellow  I  shall  be  glad  enough;  for  I  'm  not 
bound  for  either  Botany-Bay  or  Cayenne." 

"  Alas  !  "  said  Bertha,  "  it  is  all  true,  captain.  I  don't 
know  what  motive  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie  could  have  had 
to  send  you  to  sea  without  your  passengers  ;  but  it  is  very 
certain  that  this  man  is  the  one  who  told  you  the  truth." 

"  Unbind  him,  then  !  Ten  thousand  cat-o' -nine-tails  !  let 
him  go  hang  where  he  pleases  !  Now,  as  foi  you,  what  do 
you  want  ?     Are  you  coming  with  me,  or  are  you  not  ?     It 

VOL.    II.  —  21 


322  THE    LAST    VENDÉE; 

won't  cost  any  more  to  take  you  or  leave  you.  I  was  paid 
in  advance;  and  to  ease  my  conscience  I  'd  rather  like  to 
take  somebody." 

"Captain,"  said  Bertha,  "is  n't  it  possible  to  go  back  up 
the  river  and  let  our  friends  embark  to-night  as  they  meant 
to  do  last  night  ?  " 

"Impossible  !  "  replied  the  captain,  shrugging  his 
shoulders.  "Think  of  the  custom-house  officers  and  the 
river-police  !  No,  no;  a  plan  postponed  is  a  plan  defeated. 
Only,  I  say  again,  if  you  wish  to  use  my  vessel  to  get  over 
to  England,  I  am  at  your  service,  and  it  shall  cost  you 
nothing." 

The  marquis  looked  at  his  daughter,  but  she  shook  her 
head. 

"Thank  you,  captain,  thanks,"  replied  the  marquis. 
"It  is  impossible." 

"Then  we  had  better  part  company  at  once,"  said  the 
captain.  "  But  before  we  do  so,  let  me  ask  you  to  do  me 
a  service." 

"  What  is  it  ?  " 

"  It  is  about  a  little  note  of  hand  which  I  will  give  you, 
duly  signed,  requesting  you  to  draw  my  share  of  it  when 
you  draw  your  own." 

"I'll  do  anything  to  please  you,  captain,"  said  the 
marquis,   affably. 

"Very  good;  then  add  one  hundred  lashes  on  the  back 
of  the  fellow  who  fooled  me  last  night,  in  addition  to  your 
own." 

"It  shall  be  done,"  replied  the  marquis. 

"  If  he  has  any  strength  to  bear  them  after  he  has  paid 
what  he  owes  to  me,"  said  a  voice. 

At  the  same  instant  a  heavy  body  fell  into  the  water, 
and  the  head  of  Joseph  Picaut  was  seen  about  ten  paces 
off,  its  owner  swimming  vigorously  to  the  lugger.  Once 
freed  of  his  irons,  the  Chouan,  fearful,  no  doubt,  that  some 
unforeseen  circumstance  should  detain  him  on  the  vessel, 
had  plunged  head  foremost  over  the  schooner's  bulwark. 


THE    MARQUIS    DE    SOUDAY    DRAGS   FOR    OYSTERS.       323 

The  skipper  and  the  marquis  gave  him  each  a  hand,  and 
Joseph  Picaut  clambered  into  the  boat.  He  was  scarcely 
there  before  he  shouted  :  — 

"  Monsieur  le  marquis,  tell  that  old  whale  up  there  that 
the  brand  on  my  shoulder  is  a  cross  of  honor  !  " 

"  Yes,  captain,  that 's  true  !  "  cried  the  marquis.  "  This 
peasant  was  sent  to  the  galleys  for  doing  his  duty  in  the 
days  of  the  Empire,  — his  duty  as  we  see  it,  I  mean;  and 
though  I  don't  wholly  approve  of  the  means  he  took,  I  can 
declare  to  you  that  he  has  not  deserved  the  treatment  you 
gave  him." 

"Very  well,"  said  the  captain,  "that 's  all  right.  Once, 
twice,  thrice,  will  you  come  aboard,  or  will  you  not  ?" 

"No,  captain,  thank  you." 

"Then  good-bye,  and  better  luck." 

So  saying,  the  captain  signed  to  the  helmsman,  the 
schooner  paid  off  into  the  wind,  the  sails  were  squared 
again,  and  the  vessel  sailed  rapidly  away,  leaving  the 
lugger  stationary. 

While  the  old  fisherman  was  working  his  boat  to  shore, 
Bertha  and  her  father  held  counsel  together.  In  spite  of 
Picaut's  explanations  (and  those  explanations  were  brief, 
the  Chouan  having  only  seen  Courtin  at  the  moment  when 
he  was  seized  and  bound)  they  could  not  understand  the 
motives  of  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie.  His  conduct,  how- 
ever, was  plain  enough,  and  seemed  to  them  extremely 
suspicious,  —  although,  as  Bertha  now  told  her  father,  he 
had  shown  a  true  devotion  to  Michel  during  his  illness, 
and  had  often  expressed  to  her  the  utmost  attachment  to 
his  young  master.  The  marquis,  however,  was  strongly  of 
opinion  that  his  present  tortuous  behavior  concealed  some 
scheme  that  was  not  only  dangerous  to  Michel's  safety, 
but  to  that  of  their  other  friends. 

As  for  Picaut,  he  declared  plainly  that  he  lived  and 
breathed  for  vengeance  only,  and  that  if  Monsieur  de 
Souday  would  give  him  a  suit  of  sailor's  clothes  to  replace 
those  which  were  torn  from  his  back  in  the  struggles  he 


324  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

had  gone  through,  he  would  start  for  Nantes  the  instant 
he  touched  land. 

The  marquis,  convinced  that  Courtin's  treachery  was 
in  some  way  connected  with  Petit-Pierre,  wished  to  go  to 
the  town  himself;  but  Bertha,  who  believed  that  Michel, 
finding  the  escape  a  failure,  would  return  to  the  farmhouse 
at  La  Logerie,  where  he  would  expect  her  to  join  him, 
persuaded  her  father  to  put  off  entering  Nantes  till  he 
could  get  some  more  definite  information. 

The  fisherman  landed  his  passengers  at  the  Pornic  point. 
Picaut,  for  whose  benefit  the  skipper's  son  had  given 
up  his  spencer  and  his  oilskin  cap,  started  across  country 
in  a  bee-line  for  Nantes,  swearing  in  every  key  that 
Courtin  had  better  look  out  for  himself.  But  before  leav- 
ing the  marquis  he  begged  him  to  tell  Maître  Jacques  all 
the  particulars  of  his  adventure,  feeling  quite  certain  that 
the  master  of  the  warren  would  fraternally  assist  in  his 
revenge. 

It  was  thus  that,  thanks  to  his  knowledge  of  localities, 
he  was  able  to  reach  Nantes  about  nine  that  evening;  and 
going,  naturally,  to  his  old  post  at  the  Point  du  Jour, 
he  overheard  a  part  at  least  of  the  conversation  between 
Courtin  and  the  mysterious  individual  of  Aigrefeuiile, 
and  saw  the  money,  or  rather  the  bank-bills,  which  Courtin 
did  not  regard  as  valuable  until  they  were  changed  into 
coin. 

As  for  the  marquis  and  his  daughter,  it  was  not  until 
nightfall  that  they  ventured,  notwithstanding  Bertha's 
impatience,  to  start  for  the  forest  of  Touvois;  and  it  was 
not  without  actual  grief  of  heart  that  the  old  gentleman 
thought  of  the  happy  morning  he  had  spent  among  the 
fishes,  reflecting  that  it  would  have  no  morrow,  and  that 
he  was  fatally  condemned  to  live,  for  an  indefinite  time, 
like  a  rat  in  his  hole. 


THAT    VVIIIOU   HAPPENED   IN   TWO   DWELLINGS.         325 


XXXIII. 

THAT    WHICH    HAPPENED    IN    TWO    DWELLINGS. 

Maître  Jacques  was  not  mistaken  in  his  presentiments  ; 
Jean  Oullier  was  living.  The  ball  which  Courtin  had  fired 
at  random  into  the  bush  —  on  chance,  as  it  were  —  had 
entered  his  breast;  and  when  the  widow  Picaut  (the 
wheels  of  whose  cart  had  alarmed  Courtin  and  his  com- 
panion) reached  him,  she  felt  sure  she  was  lifting  a  dead 
body.  With  a  charitable  sentiment,  very  natural  to  a 
peasant-woman,  she  did  not  choose  that  the  body  of  a  man 
for  whom  her  husband  had  always,  in  spite  of  their  politi- 
cal differences,  expressed  the  utmost  respect,  should  be 
left  as  food  for  the  buzzards  and  jackals  ;  she  was  deter- 
mined that  the  good  Vendéan  should  lie  in  holy  ground, 
and  she  therefore  placed  him  on  her  cart  to  take  him  home. 

Only,  instead  of  hiding  him  in  the  cart,  as  she  had 
intended  doing,  she  now  laid  him  on  it  uncovered,  and 
several  of  the  peasants  whom  she  met  on  the  way  stopped 
to  look  at  and  touch  the  bloody  remains  of  the  Marquis  de 
Souday's  old  keeper.  In  this  way  the  news  of  Jean 
Oullier's  death  was  spread  about  the  canton;  and  this  wa^ 
how  the  marquis  and  his  daughters  heard  of  it,  and  why1 
Courtin,  —  who,  the  next  day,  wanted  to  make  sure  that 
the  man  he  most  feared  was  no  longer  living  to  terrify 
him,  —  why  Courtin  had  been  deceived  and  misled  like 
the  rest. 

It  was  to  the  old  cottage  where  she  had  formerly  lived 
with  her  husband  that  Marianne  Picaut  now  took  the  body. 
Since  Pascal's  death  she  had,  in  her  loneliness,  removed 
to  the  inn  kept  by  her  mother  at  Saint-Philbert.      The 


326  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

cottage  was  nearer  to  Machecoul,  Jean  Oullier's  parish, 
than  the  inn;  to  which,  had  he  been  living,  she  intended 
to  take  him  and  keep  him  safely  concealed  till  he  was 
well. 

Just  as  the  cart  reached  the  open  crossway  we  have 
often  mentioned,  one  road  of  which  led  to  the  dwelling  of 
the  two  Picaut  brothers,  it  met  a  man  on  horseback  fol- 
lowing the  road  to  Machecoul.  This  man,  who  was  no 
other  than  our  old  acquaintance,  Monsieur  Roger,  the 
doctor  at  Lege,  questioned  some  of  the  little  ragamuffins 
who,  with  the  persistency  and  curiosity  of  their  age,  were 
following  the  cart.  When  the  doctor  heard  that  it  con- 
tained the  body  of  Jean  Oullier,  he  left  his  present  direc- 
tion and  followed  the  cart  to  the  Picaut  dwelling. 

The  widow  placed  Jean  Oullier  on  the  bed  where  Pascal 
Picaut  and  the  poor  Comte  de  Bonneville  had  lain  side  by 
side.  While  thus  busy  in  doing  him  the  last  offices,  and 
wiping  the  blood  and  dust  which  covered  his  face  and 
matted  his  hair,  the  widow  suddenly  looked  up  and  saw 
the  doctor. 

"Alas  !  dear  Monsieur  Roger,"  she  said,  "the  poor  gars 
is  beyond  your  help,  more  's  the  pity.  There  are  so  many 
left  on  this  earth  who  are  not  worth  their  salt  that  it  is 
doubly  sad  when  one  like  Jean  Oullier  is  carried  off  before 
his  time." 

The  doctor  made  the  widow  tell  him  all  she  knew  of 
Jean  Oullier's  death.  The  presence  of  her  sister-in-law 
and  the  children  and  women  who  had  followed  the  cart  out 
of  curiosity,  prevented  the  widow  from  relating  how  she 
had  met  him  and  left  him  a  few  hours  earlier,  full  of  life, 
except  for  his  broken  ankle;  and  how,  returning  after 
dark,  she  heard  a  pistol-shot  and  the  footsteps  of  men  who 
were  running  away,  having  no  doubt  murdered  him.  She 
merely  said  that  coining  from  the  moor  she  had  found  the 
body  on  the  road. 

"Poor,  brave  man  !"  said  the  doctor.  "But  after  all, 
better  such  a  death  —  the  death  of  a  soldier  —  than  the  fate 


THAT   WHICH   HAPPENED    IN    TWO    DWELLINGS.        327 

that  awaited  him  had  he  lived.  He  was  seriously  com- 
promised, and  if  taken,  they  would  have  sent  him,  no 
doubt,  to  the  cells  on  Mont  Saint-Michel." 

As  he  said  the  words  the  doctor  went  nearer  to  the  body 
and  mechanically  took  the  inert  arm  to  lay  it  over  the 
breast;  but  his  hand  had  no  sooner  come  in  contact  with 
the  flesh  than  the  doctor  started. 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  asked  the  widow. 

"Nothing,"  replied  the  doctor,  coldly.  "The  man  is 
dead  and  only  needs  the  last  offices." 

"  Why  did  you  bring  his  body  here  ?  "  said  the  wife  of 
Joseph  Picaut,  angrily.  "  We  shall  have  the  Blues  down 
upon  us  !  You  know  what  happened  the  first  time,  and  can 
judge  by  that." 

"What  does  that  signify  to  you,"  said  the  widow,  "as 
neither  you  nor  your  husband  live  here  any  longer  ?  " 

"It  is  the  very  reason  we  don't  live  here,"  replied 
Joseph's  wife.  "  We  are  afraid  the  Blues  nia}1"  be  after  us 
and  destroy  the  little  property  that  is  left." 

"  You  would  do  well  to  have  him  recognized  before  }Tou 
bury  him,"  interrupted  the  doctor;  "and  if  that  will  be 
any  trouble  to  you  I'll  undertake  to  remove  the  body  to 
the  château  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday,  whose  physician  I 
am."  Then,  seizing  a  moment  when  the  widow  passed 
close  beside  him,  he  whispered,  "Get  rid  of  these  people." 
This  was  easy  to  do,  as  it  was  then  near  midnight.  As 
soon  as  they  were  alone  the  doctor  said,  going  close  up  to 
Marianne  :  — 

"Jean  Oullier  is  not  dead." 

"Not  dead  ?  "  she  cried. 

"No.  I  said  nothing  before  those  people,  because,  in  n^ 
opinion,  it  is  of  the  utmost  consequence  that  no  one  shall 
come  here  and  disturb  you  in  the  care  I  am  sure  you  will 
give  him." 

"  God  bless  you  !  "  said  the  good  woman,  joyfully.  "  If  I 
can  help  to  cure  him  you  may  count  on  me;  I  '11  do  it  with 
the  greatest  happiness,  for  I  shall  never  forget  the  friend- 


328  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

ship  my  poor  husband  felt  for  him.  Neither  shall  I  cease 
to  remember  that  though  I  was  then  working  against  him 
and  his,  Jean  Oullier  would  n't  let  me  die  by  the  hand  of  a 
murderer.  " 

Then,  having  carefully  closed  all  the  shutters  and  the 
door  of  her  room,  the  widow  lighted  a  fire,  heated  water, 
and  while  the  doctor  examined  the  wound  and  tried  to  dis- 
cover what,  if  any,  vital  organs  were  involved,  she  said 
good-bye  to  a  few  old  gossips  still  lingering  about  the 
house,  saying  she  was  on  her  way  back  to  Saint-Phi lbert. 
Then  at  the  first  turn  of  the  road  she  darted  into  the  woods 
and  returned  to  the  cottage  by  way  of  the  orchard. 

She  listened  at  Joseph  Picaut's  part  of  the  house;  it 
was  closed  and  she  heard  no  sound.  Evidently  her  sister- 
in-law  and  the  children  had  returned  to  the  hiding-place  in 
which  they  lived  while  the  husband  and  father  continued 
to  keep  up,  under  Maître  Jacques,  the  partisan  warfare. 

Marianne  re-entered  her  own  part  of  the  house  by  the 
back  door.  The  doctor  had  finished  dressing  the  wound: 
the  signs  of  life  in  the  body  were  becoming  more  and  more 
evident.  Not  only  the  heart,  but  the  pulses  too  were 
beating;  and  on  putting  a  hand  before  the  lips  the  breath 
could  be  distinctly  felt.  The  widow  listened  joyfully  to 
what  the  doctor  told  her. 

"  Do  you  think  you  can  save  him  ?  "  she  asked. 

"That's  in  God's  hands,"  replied  the  doctor.  "All  1 
can  say  is  that  no  vital  organ  is  involved,  but  the  loss  of 
blood  has  been  enormous  ;  and  I  have  also  found  it  impossi- 
ble to  extract  the  ball." 

"  But,  "  said  Marianne,  "  I  have  heard  that  men  can  be 
cured  and  live  to  old  age  with  a  ball  in  the  body." 

"  So  they  can,  "  replied  the  doctor.  "  But  now,  how  are 
you  going  to  manage  ?  " 

"I  did  mean  to  take  the  poor  fellow  to  Saint-Philbert 
and  hide  him  there  till  he  died  or  recovered." 

"You  can't  do  that  now,"  said  the  doctor.  "He  must 
have  been  saved  by  what  we  call  a  clot,  which  has  plugged 


THAT   WHICH    HAPPENED    IN    TWO    DWELLINGS.        329 

the  artery.  The  slightest  jar  now  would  prove  fatal. 
Besides,  in  your  mother's  inn  at  Saint-Philbert,  with  so 
many  going  and  coming,  you  could  never  conceal  his 
presence." 

"Good  God  !  do  you  believe  that  in  such  a  state  they 
would  have  the  cruelty  to  arrest  him  ?  " 

"  They  would  not  put  him  in  prison,  of  course  ;  but  they 
would  take  him  to  some  hospital,  and  as  soon  as  he  recovers 
they  would  try  him,  and  condemn  him  either  to  death  or 
to  the  galleys.  Jean  Oullier  is  one  of  those  obscure 
leaders  who  are  so  dangerous  through  their  influence  on 
the  body  of  the  people  that  the  government  will  be  pitiless 
toward  him.  Why  don't  you  confide  in  your  sister-in- 
law  ?     Jean  Oullier  and  she  hold  the  same  opinions." 

"  You  heard  what  she  said  ?  " 

"That 's  true.  I  see  you  can't  have  much  confidence  in 
her  pity.  And  yet,  God  knows,  she  of  all  people  ought  to 
be  merciful  to  her  neighbor,  for  if  her  husband  were  taken 
it  might  go  far  worse  with  him  than  with  Jean  Oullier." 

"Yes,  I  know  that,"  said  the  widow,  in  a  gloomy  voice. 
"Death  is  upon  them  all." 

"Well,"  said  the  doctor,  "the  question  is,  can  you  hide 
him  here  ?  " 

"  Here  ?  Yes,  of  course  I  can  ;  he  will  even  be  safer 
here  than  elsewhere,  because  the  house  is  thought  to  be 
empty.     But  who  would  take  care  of  him  ?  " 

"  Jean  Oullier  is  not  a  girl  or  a  baby,  "  replied  the  doctor. 
"Two  or  three  days  hence,  after  the  fever  subsides,  he  can 
be  left  alone  all  day;  and  I  '11  promise  you  to  visit  him  at 
night." 

"Very  good;  and  I  '11  be  here  all  the  time  I  can  without 
exciting  suspicion." 

Marianne,  with  the  doctor's  help,  carried  the  wounded 
man  into  the  stable  adjoining  her  room;  she  bolted  tli" 
door  carefully,  placed  her  own  mattress  on  a  pile  of  straw, 
and  then,  appointing  to  meet  the  doctor  there  the  follow- 
ing night,  and  knowing  that  the  sick  man  would  need  onlv 


330  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

a  little  fresh  water  at  first,  she  threw  herself  on  a  heap  of 
straw  beside  him  and  waited  patiently  till  he  showed  some 
signs  of  returning  life,  either  by  words  or  even  by  a  sigh. 

The  next  day  she  showed  herself  at  Saint-Philbert;  and 
when  asked  about  Jean  Oullier,  replied  that  she  had  fol- 
lowed the  advice  of  her  sister-in-law,  and  fearing  to  be 
molested,  had  taken  the  dead  body  back  to  the  moor  where 
she  had  found  it.  Then  she  returned  to  her  house  on  pre- 
tence of  putting  it  in  order.  The  following  evening  she 
again  closed  it  carefully  and  went  back  to  Saint-Philbert 
before  dark,  so  that  all  the  town  might  see  her.  But  no 
sooner  was  it  really  night  than  she  returned  to  Jean 
Oullier. 

She  nursed  him  in  this  way  for  three  days  and  nights, 
shut  up  with  him  in  the  stable,  fearing  to  make  the  slight- 
est noise  that  might  betray  her  presence;  and  though  at 
the  end  of  those  three  days  Jean  Oullier  was  still  in  the 
state  of  torpor  which  follows  great  physical  commotions 
and  loss  of  blood,  the  doctor  advised  her  to  stay  at  home 
during  the  day  and  return  to  him  only  at  night. 

Jean  Oullier's  wound  was  so  severe  that  he  really  hung 
for  a  fortnight  between  life  and  death;  fragments  of  his 
clothing  carried  in  by  the  ball  remained  in  the  wound, 
where  they  kept  up  the  inflammation,  and  it  was  not  till 
Nature  herself  eliminated  them  that  the  doctor,  to  the 
widow's  great  joy,  declared  him  out  of  danger.  The  good 
woman's  care  redoubled  as  soon  as  she  felt  he  would 
recover;  and  though  her  patient  was  still  weak  and  could 
hardly  articulate  more  than  a  few  words,  and  the  signs 
were  few  of  his  being  any  better,  she  never  failed  to  spend 
the  night  beside  him  and  supply  all  his  wants,  taking  at 
the  same  time  the  utmost  precautions. 

In  spite  of  all  drawbacks,  however,  no  sooner  were  the 
foreign  substances  expelled  from  the  wound,  and  a  steady 
and  healthful  suppuration  set  up,  than  he  made  rapid  strides 
to  recovery.  As  his  strength  returned  he  began  to  worry 
greatly  about  those  he  loved;    and  he  now  implored   the 


THAT    WHICH    HAPPENED    IN    TWO    DWELLINGS.        331 

widow  to  bring  him  some  news  of  the  Marquis  de  Souday, 
Bertha,  Mary,  and  even  Michel,  —  Michel,  who  had  actually 
triumphed  over  the  old  Vendéan's  antipathies  and  con- 
quered a  place,  however  small,  in  his  affections.  Marianne 
did  as  he  requested,  and  made  some  inquiries  of  the  roj'al- 
ist  travellers  who  stopped  at  her  mother's  inn  ;  and  she 
was  soon  able  to  relieve  Jean  Oullier's  mind  by  telling 
him  that  his  friends  were  all  living  and  well;  that  the 
marquis  was  in  the  forest  of  Touvois,  Bertha  and  Michel 
at  Courtin's  farmhouse,  and  Mary,  in  all  probability,  at 
Nantes. 

But  the  widow  had  no  sooner  uttered  the  name  of  Courtin 
than  a  total  change  came  over  her  patient's  face;  he  passed 
his  hand  across  his  forehead  as  if  to  clear  his  thought,  and 
rose  in  his  bed  for  the  first  time  without  assistance. 
Friendship  and  tenderness  had  occupied  his  first  returning 
thoughts;  hatred  and  thoughts  of  vengeance  now  filled  his 
hitherto  empty  brain,  and  over-excited  it  with  all  the  more 
violence  because  it  had  been  torpid  so  long. 

To  her  terror,  Marianne  Picaut  heard  Jean  Oullier  again 
uttering  phrases  he  had  cried  out  in  his  fever,  and  which 
she  had  then  taken  for  delirium;  she  heard  him  mingle 
Courtin's  name  with  accusations  of  treachery  and  murder 
and  of  fabulous  sums  paid  for  some  crime.  Talking  thus, 
her  patient  became  violently  excited;  with  flashing  eyes, 
and  in  a  voice  trembling  with  emotion  he  implored  her  to 
go  and  find  Bertha  and  bring  her  to  his  bedside.  The  poor 
woman  believed  his  excitement  was  caused  by  a  return  of 
the  fever,  and  was  all  the  more  uneasy  because  the  doctor 
had  told  her  that  he  should  not  return  for  two  nights. 
She  nevertheless  promised  the  patient  to  do  as  he  requested. 

On  this  promise  Jean  Oullier  calmed  down,  and  little  by 
little,  overcome  with  the  violence  of  the  emotions  he  had 
just  passed  through,  he  went  to  sleep. 

The  widow,  sitting  on  the  straw  beside  the  bed,  and  con- 
scious of  her  own  fatigue,  felt  her  eyes  closing  and  sleep 
overtaking  her  in  spite  of  herself,  when,  all  of  a  sudden 


332  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

she  heard,  or  fancied  she  heard,  some  unusual  sound  in  the 
court-yard.  She  listened  attentively;  it  was  certainly  a 
man's  step  on  the  pavement  which  surrounded  the  pile  of 
manure  which  lay  in  the  yard  of  the  two  dwellings.  Pres- 
ently a  hand  unfastened  the  latch  of  the  adjoining  door, 
and  Marianne  heard  a  voice,  which  she  recognized  as  that 
of  her  brother-in-law,  cry  out  :  "  This  way,  this  way  !  " 
and  then  the  steps  went  up  to  Joseph's  house. 

Marianne  knew  that  the  house  was  empty;  this  nocturnal 
visit  of  her  brother-in-law  excited  her  curiosity.  She  did 
not  doubt  it  concerned  some  scheme  of  violence  such  as  all 
Chouans  cherish  traditionally,  and  she  resolved  to  listen. 

She  softly  raised  the  shutter  of  a  hole  through  which 
the  cows,  when  in  the  stable,  poked  their  heads  to  eat  the 
provender  laid  for  them  on  the  floor  of  the  room  itself. 
Through  this  narrow  opening  she  crawled  into  her  own 
room  ;  then  she  climbed  noiselessly  up  the  ladder  on  which 
the  Comte  de  Bonneville  had  met  his  death,  entered  the 
garret,  which,  as  we  know,  was  common  to  the  two  houses, 
and  there,  with  her  ear  to  the  floor  above  her  brother-in- 
law's  room,  listened  attentively. 

She  came  into  the  midst  of  a  conversation  already  begun . 

"  Did  you  see  the  sum  ?  "  said  a  voice  which  was  not 
completely  unknown  to  her,  though  she  could  not  recall 
the  owner  of  it. 

"  As  plain  as  I  see  you,  "  replied  Joseph  Picaut.  "  It  was 
all  in  bank-bills;  but  he  insisted  on  having  it  in  gold." 

"So  much  the  better  !  for  bills,  I  must  say,  don't  attract 
me  much;  it  is  difficult  to  get  them  taken  in  country 
places." 

"I  tell  you  he  is  to  have  gold." 

"  Good  !  and  where  are  they  to  meet  ?  " 

"  At  Saint-Philbert,  to-morrow  night.  You  have  plenty 
of  time  to  collect  your  gars." 

"  My  gars  !  are  you  crazy  ?  How  many  did  you  say  they 
were  ?  " 

"Two;  that  villain  and  his  companion." 


THAÏ   WHICH    HAPPENED    IN    TWO    DWELLINGS.        333 

"Well,  then,  two  against  two;  that's  the  right  kind  of 
war,  as  Georges  Cadoudal  of  glorious  memory  used  to  say." 

"But  you  have  only  one  hand  now,  Maître  Jacques." 

"That  doesn't  matter,  if  the  one  hand  is  a  good  one. 
I  '11  settle  the  strongest  of  the  pair." 

"No,  no  !  that 's  not  in  the  agreement  !  " 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"I  want  the  mayor  for  myself." 

"  You  are  exacting  !  " 

"Oh,  the  villain!  it  will  be  little  enough  satisfaction 
for  all  he  has  made  me  suffer." 

"If  they  have  the  money  you  say  they  have,  there  '11  be 
enough  to  compensate  you,  even  if  he  had  sold  you  on  the 
shambles  like  a  negro.  Twenty-five  thousand  francs  !  You 
are  not  worth  all  that,  my  good  fellow,  I  know  !  " 

"Perhaps  not;  but  revenge  is  what  I  am  after,  and  I  've 
long  wanted  to  get  my  hand  on  him,  the  damned  cur.  It 
was  he  who  caused  —  " 

"Caused  what?" 

"No  matter;  I  know." 

Joseph  Picaut's  meaning  was  unintelligible  to  every  one 
except  Marianne.  She  was  certain  that  the  recollection  in 
the  Chouan's  mind  related  to  the  killing  of  her  poor  hus- 
band, and  a  shudder  ran  through  her  frame. 

"Well,"  said  Joseph's  companion,  "you  shall  have  your 
man.  But,  before  undertaking  the  matter,  will  you  swear 
that  all  you  have  said  is  true,  and  that  it  is  really  a  gov- 
ernment agent  on  whom  I  am  to  lay  hands  ?  Otherwise, 
you  understand,  the  affair  won't  suit  me." 

"The  devil  !  Do  you  suppose  any  private  man  is  rich 
enough  to  make  presents  like  that  to  such  a  villain  ? 
Besides,  those  fifty  thousand  francs  are  only  on  account; 
I  heard  that  plainly." 

"  And  you  could  n't  find  out  what  they  were  paying  such 
a  large  sum  for  ?  " 

"No,  but  I  can  guess." 

"Tell  me." 


334  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"It  is  iny  opinion,  Maître  Jacques,  that  in  ridding  the 
earth  of  that  pair  of  rascals  we  shall  be  killing  two  birds 
with  one  stone, —  a  private  master  first,  and  a  political 
stroke  next.  But  don't  be  uneasy;  I'll  know  more  by 
to-morrow  night,  and  let  you  know." 

"  Sacredié  !  "  exclaimed  Maître  Jacques  ;  "  you  make  my 
mouth  water.  Look  here  !  I  retract  my  word;  you  can 
only  have  your  man  if  I  leave  a  bit  of  him  !  " 

"  Leave  a  bit  of  him  !  what  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"Why,  before  you  settle  with  him  I  want  my  share  in 
the  conversation." 

"Pooh  !  do  you  suppose  you  could  get  his  secret  out  of 
him  ?  " 

"Yes,  if  he  is  once  my  prisoner." 

"He  's  a  sly  one  !  " 

"Nonsense.  You,  who  knew  the  old  days,  don't  you 
remember  how  we  used  to  make  'em  speak,  —  those  who 
did  n't  want  to  ?  "  said  Maître  Jacques,  with  a  dangerous 
look. 

"  Ha,  yes  !  how  we  roasted  their  paws  !  Faith,  you  are 
right;  that  will  serve  my  vengeance  better  still,"  replied 
Joseph  Picaut. 

"And  then  we  shall  find  out  why  and  wherefore  the 
government  sends  those  little  gifts  of  fifty  thousand  francs, 
on  account,  to  a  country  mayor.  That  knowledge  may  be 
worth  more  to  us  than  the  gold  we  pocket." 

"  Hey  !  gold  has  its  value,  especially  to  us  who  are  old 
offenders  and  likely  to  leave  our  heads  on  the  place  du 
Bouffai.  With  my  share,  that  is,  tweuty-five  thousand 
francs,  I  can  get  away  and  live  elsewhere." 

"  You  shall  do  as  you  like.  But  come  !  tell  me  exactly 
where  your  pair  are  to  meet;  it  is  important  not  to  miss 
them." 

"  At  the  inn  of  Saint-Philbert." 

"Then  that's  all  right.  Isn't  that  inn  kept  by  your 
sister-in-law,  or  pretty  nearly  ?  She  shall  have  her  share; 
it  will  be  in  the  family." 


THAT    WHICH    HAPPENED    IN   TWO    DWELLINGS.        335 

"Oh,  no,  no  !  "  cried  Joseph.  "In  the  first  place  she  is 
not  one  of  ours;  and  besides,  she  doesn't  speak  to  me 
since  —  " 

"  Since  what  ?  " 

"My  brother's  death,  there  !  since  you  force  me  to  tell 
you." 

"  Ah,  ha  !  so  it  was  true,  what  they  said,  that  if  you  did 
not  strike  the  blow,  you  at  least  held  the  candle  ?  " 

"  Who  said  that,  —  who  said  that  ?  "  shouted  Joseph 
Picaut.  "Name  him,  Maître  Jacques,  and  I'll  hack  him 
into  pieces  like  that  stool  !  "  And  suiting  the  action  to  the 
word,  he  dashed  the  stool  on  which  he  was  sitting  to  the 
stone  hearth  and  shivered  it  to  fragments. 

"Quiet!  quiet!"  said  Maître  Jacques;  "  what 's  all  that 
to  me  ?  You  know  I  never  meddle  in  family  affairs.  Come 
back  to  our  own  business.     You  were  saying  ?  " 

"I  was  saying,  don't  mix  the  matter  up  with  my  sister- 
in-law." 

"Then  it  must  be  settled  in  the  open  country.  But 
where  ?     They  '11  be  sure  to  come  by  different  roads." 

"  Yes,  but  they  will  go  away  together.  In  order  to  get 
home,  the  mayor  will  have  to  take  the  road  to  Nantes  as 
far  as  the  Tiercet." 

"  Well,  then,  let 's  ambush  by  the  road  to  Nantes  among 
the  reeds;  it  is  a  good  hiding-place.  For  my  part,  I've 
made  more  than  one  good  stroke  just  there." 

"  So  be  it.  Where  shall  we  meet  ?  I  shall  leave  here 
to-morrow,  before  daylight,"  said  Joseph. 

"Well,  then,  meet  me  at  the  Ragot  crossways  in  the 
forest  of  Machecoul,"  said  the  master  of  warrens. 

Joseph  agreed  to  the  place  and  promised  to.be  there. 
The  widow  heard  him  offer  Maître  Jacques  a  night's  lodg- 
ing under  his  roof;  but  the  old  Chouan,  who  had  his  bur- 
rows in  every  forest  of  the  canton,  preferred  those  asylums 
to  all  the  houses  in  the  world,  if  not  for  comfort,  at  least 
for  security. 

He  departed  therefore,  and  all  was  silent  in  Joseph's 
part  of  the  house. 


336  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

Marianne  returned  to  lier  stable  and  found  Jean  Oullier 
fast  asleep;  she  did  not  wake  him.  The  night  was  far 
advanced,  —  so  advanced  that  she  had  only  time  to  get  back 
to  Saint-Philbert  before  daylight.  After  arranging,  as 
usual,  everything  that  her  patient  might  want  during  the 
morrow,  she  left  the  stable  through  the  window. 

As  she  walked  thoughtfully  along,  the  hatred  she  felt  to 
her  brother-in-law,  because  of  her  firm  conviction  that  he 
had  shared  in  the  death  of  Pascal,  and  her  deep  desire  for 
vengeance,  which  the  loneliness  and  sufferings  of  her 
widowhood  made  daily  more  imperious,  came  over  her. 
It  seemed  to  her  that  heaven,  by  calling  her  providentially 
to  the  discovery  of  Joseph's  secret  intention  of  crime,  put 
itself  on  her  side;  she  believed  she  would  be  serving  its 
designs  (while  satisfying  her  hatred)  in  preventing  the 
accomplishment  of  this  crime  and  the  ruin  and  death  of 
those  she  considered  innocent.  Her  first  idea  had  been  to 
denounce  Maître  Jacques  and  Joseph  either  to  the  police 
or  to  those  they  intended  to  attack  ;  but  she  now  renounced 
that  scheme  and  resolved  to  be  herself,  and  all  alone,  the 
intermediary  between  fate  and  the  victims  of  the  intended 
crime. 


COURTIN  FINGERS  HIS  FUT!  THOUSAND  FKANCS.      ool 


XXXIV. 

COURTIN   FINGERS   AT    LAST   HIS   FIFTY   THOUSAND    FRANCS. 

Petit-Pierre's  letter  to  Bertha  had  not  told  Courtin 
much,  except  that  Petit-Pierre  was  in  Nantes  and  awaited 
Bertha.  As  to  her  hiding-place  and  the  means  of  reaching 
it,  the  letter  left  him  in  the  dark. 

He  did,  however,  possess  an  important  piece  of  informa- 
tion in  his  knowledge  of  the  house  with  two  entrances, 
through  which  Michel,  Mary,  and  the  duchess  had  un- 
doubtedly passed.  For  a  moment  he  thought  of  continu- 
ing his  method  of  spying,  and  of  following  Bertha  when, 
in  obedience  to  Petit-Pierre's  injunction,  she  should  seek 
the  princess  in  Nantes  ;  and  he  also  thought  of  discounting 
to  his  profit  the  distress  of  the  girl's  mind  when  she  should 
discover  the  true  relations  of  Michel  and  her  sister.  But 
the  farmer  had  now  come  to  doubt  the  efficacy  of  the  means 
he  had  hitherto  employed;  he  felt  he  might  lose,  without 
recovery,  his  last  chance  of  success,  if  accident  or  the 
vigilance  of  those  he  watched  were  to  baffle  once  more  his 
sagacity  and  cunning.  He  therefore  decided  to  try  another 
means  and  take  the  initiative. 

Was  the  house  which  opened  on  the  nameless  alley  to 
which  we  have  several  times  taken  the  reader,  and  also  on 
the  rue  du  Marché,  actually  inhabited  ?  If  so,  who  lived 
there  ?  Through  that  person,  or  persons,  might  it  not  be 
possible  to  reach  Petit-Pierre  ?  Such  were  the  questions 
which  reflection  placed  before  the  mind  of  the  mayor  of 
La  Logerie. 

In  order  to  solve  them  it  was  necessary  that  he  should 
stay  in  Nantes;    and  Maître  Courtin  at  once  resolved   to 

VOL.  II.  —  22 


338  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

give  up  returning  to  his  farm,  where  it  was  very  probable 
that  Bertha  had  already  gone  to  meet  Michel  on  learning 
of  the  failure  of  his  attempt  to  escape.  He  therefore  boldly 
decided  on  his  new  course. 

The  next  day,  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  he  knocked 
at  the  door  of  the  mysterious  house;  but  instead  of  pre- 
senting himself  at  the  door  on  the  alley,  he  went  to  that 
on  the  rue  du  Marché,  —  his  intention  being  to  convince 
himself  that  the  two  doors  gave  entrance  to  the  same 
house. 

When  the  person  who  answered  the  knock  had  satisfied 
himself  through  a  little  iron  grating  that  the  person  knock- 
ing was  alone,  he  opened,  or  rather  half-opened  the  door. 
The  two  heads  now  came  face  to  face. 

"  Where  do  you  come  from  ?  "  asked  the  man  inside. 

Taken  aback  by  the  suddenness  with  which  this  question 
was  put,  Courtin  hesitated. 

"  Par  dieu  !  "  he  said,  "from  Touvois." 

"No  one  is  expected  from  there,"  replied  the  man, 
attempting  to  close  the  door;  but  it  was  not  so  easy  to  do 
this,  for  Courtin  had  his  foot  against  it. 

A  ray  of  light  darted  into  the  farmer's  mind  ;  he  remem- 
bered the  words  Michel  had  used  to  obtain  the  two  horses 
from  the  landlord  of  the  Point  du  Jour,  and  he  felt  cer- 
tain that  those  words,  which  he  had  not  understood  at  the 
time,  were  the  countersign. 

The  man  continued  to  push  the  door;  but  Courtin  held 
firm. 

"  Wait,  wait  !  "  he  said.  "  When  I  said  I  came  from 
Touvois  I  was  only  trying  to  find  out  if  you  were  in  the 
secret;  one  can't  take  too  many  precautions  in  these  devilish 
times.  Well,  there  !  I  don't  come  from  Touvois,  I  come 
from  the  South." 

"  And  where  are  you  going  ?  "  asked  his  questioner,  with- 
out, however,  yielding  one  inch  of  the  way. 

"Where  do  you  expect  me  to  go,  if  I  come  from  the 
South,  but  to  Rosny  ?  " 


COURTIN  FINGERS  HIS  FIFTY  THOUSAND  PKANCS.      339 

"That's  all  right,"  said  the  servant;  "but  don't  you 
see,  my  fine  friend,  that  no  one  can  come  in  hero  without 
showing  a  white  paw?  " 

"For  those  who  are  all  white,  that  is  n't  difficult." 

"Hum  !  so  much  the  better,"  said  the  man,  a  peasant  of 
Lower  Brittany,  who  was  running  over  the  beads  of  a 
chaplet  in  his  hand  while  speaking. 

But  inasmuch  as  Courtin  had  really  answered  with  the 
proper  passwords,  he  showed  him,  though  with  evident 
reluctance,  into  a  small  room,  and  said,  pointing  to  a 
chair  :  — 

"Monsieur  is  engaged  just  now.  I  will  announce  you 
as  soon  as  he  has  finished  with  the  person  who  is  now  in 
his  office.  Sit  down, —  unless  you  want  to  spend  the  time 
more  usefully." 

Courtin  saw  that  he  had  gained  more  than  he  expected. 
He  had  hoped  to  meet  some  subordinate  agent  from  whom 
he  could  extract,  either  by  trickery  or  corruption,  the  clues 
he  wanted.  When  the  man  who  admitted  him  spoke  of 
announcing  him  to  his  master,  he  felt  that  the  matter  was 
becoming  serious,  and  that  he  ought  to  be  ready  with  some 
tale  to  meet  the  necessities  of  the  situation.  He  refrained 
from  questioning  the  servant,  whose  stern  and  gloomy 
countenance  showed  him  to  be  one  of  those  rigid  fanatics 
who  are  still  to  be  found  on  the  Celtic  peninsula.  Courtin 
instantly  perceived  the  tone  he  ought  to  take. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  giving  to  his  countenance  a  humble  and 
sanctimonious  expression,  "I  will  wait  Monsieur's  leisure 
and  employ  the  time  in  prayer.  May  I  take  one  of  those 
prayer-books  ?  "  he  added,  glancing  at  the  table. 

"Don't  touch  those  books  if  you  are  what  you  pretend  to 
be;  they  are  not  prayer-books,  they  are  profane  books," 
replied  the  Breton.  "I  '11  lend  you  mine,"  he  continued, 
drawing  from  the  pocket  of  his  embroidered  jacket  a  little 
book,  the  cover  and  edges  of  which  were  blackened  by 
time  and  usage. 

The  movement  he  made   in  carrying   his   hand   to  his 


340  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

pocket  disclosed  the  shining  handles  of  two  pistols  stuck 
into  his  wide  belt,  and  Courtin  congratulated  himself  on 
not  having  risked  any  attempt  on  the  fidelity  of  the  Breton, 
whom  he  now  felt  to  be  a  man  who  would  have  answered 
it  in  some  dangerous  way. 

"Thank  you,"  he  said,  as  he  received  the  book  and  knelt 
down  with  such  humility  and  contrition  that  the  Breton, 
much  edified,  removed  the  hat  from  his  long  hair,  made 
the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  closed  the  door  very  softly,  that 
he  might  not  trouble  the  devotions  of  so  saintly  a  person. 

As  soon  as  he  was  alone,  the  farmer  felt  a  desire  to 
examine  in  detail  the  room  in  which  he  found  himself; 
but  he  was  not  the  man  to  commit  such  a  blunder  as  that. 
He  reflected  that  the  Breton's  eye  might  be  fixed  on  him 
through  the  keyhole;  he  therefore  controlled  himself  and 
remained  absorbed  in  prayer. 

Nevertheless,  while  mumbling  his  pater-nosters,  Courtin's 
eyes  did  rove  about  the  floor  below  him.  The  room  was 
not  more  than  a  dozen  feet  square,  and  was  separated  from 
an  adjoining  room  by  a  partition,  in  which  there  was  a 
door.  This  little  room  was  plainly  furnished  in  walnut, 
and  was  lighted  by  a  window  on  the  court-yard,  the  lower 
panes  of  which  were  provided  with  a  very  delicate  iron 
grating  painted  green,  which  prevented  any  one  on  the 
outside  from  seeing  into  the  apartment. 

He  listened  attentively  to  hear  if  any  sound  of  voices 
could  reach  him;  but  as  to  this,  precautions  had  doubtless 
been  taken,  for  though  Maître  Courtin  strained  his  ears 
toward  the  door  and  toward  the  chimney,  near  which  he 
was  kneeling,  not  a  sound  reached  him. 

But,  as  he  stooped  beneath  the  chimney-piece  to  listen 
better,  Courtin  caught  sight,  among  the  ashes,  of  several 
bits  of  crumpled  paper  lying  in  a  heap,  as  if  placed  there 
to  be  burned.  These  papers  tempted  him;  he  dropped 
his  arm,  and  then,  leaning  his  head  against  the  chimne}r- 
piece,  he  slowly  stretched  out  his  hand  and  took  up  the 
papers,   one  by  one.     Without  changing  his  position  he 


COURTIN  FINGERS  HIS  FIFTY  THOUSAND  FRANCS.      341 

managed  to  open  them,  confident  that  his  movements  at 
that  level  were  hidden  from  any  eye  at  the  keyhole  by  a 
table  in  the  middle  of  the  room. 

He  had  examined  and  thrown  away  as  of  no  interest 
several  of  these  papers,  when  on  the  back  of  one  (among  a 
number  of  insignificant  bills  which  he  was  about  to  crum- 
ple up  on  his  knee  and  return  to  the  ashes)  he  spied  certain 
words  in  a  delicate v  and  refined  handwriting,  which  struck 
him  ;  they  were  as  follows  :  — 

"  If  you  feel  uneasy,  come  at  once.  Our  friend  desires  me.  to 
say  that  there  is  an  empty  room  in  our  retreat  which  is  at  your 
service." 

The  note  was  signed  M.  de  S.  Evidently,  as  the  initials 
indicated,  it  was  signed  by  Mary  de  Souday.  Courtin 
put  it  carefully  away  in  his  pocket;  his  peasant  craftiness 
had  instantly  perceived  the  possible  good  he  might  get  out 
of  its  possession. 

He  continued  his  investigations,  however,  and  came 
to  the  conclusion,  from  sundry  bills  for  large  payments, 
that  the  owner  or  lessee  of  the  house  must  be  intrusted  with 
the  management  of  the  duchess's  money-matters.  Just 
then  he  heard  the  sound  of  voices  and  of  steps  in  the  pas- 
sage. He  rose  hastily  and  went  to  the  window.  Through 
the  grating  we  have  mentioned  he  saw  the  servant  escort- 
ing a  gentleman  to  the  door.  The  latter  held  in  his  hand 
an  empty  money-bag,  and  before  leaving  the  premises  he 
folded  it  up  and  put  it  in  his  pocket.  Until  then  Courtin 
had  not  been  able  to  see  his  face;  but,  just  as  he  passed  in 
front  of  the  servant  to  go  out  of  the  door,  Courtin  recog- 
nized Maître  Loriot. 

"Ah,  ha  !  "  he  said.  "So  he  's  in  it,  is  he  ?  It  is  he 
who  brings  them  money.  Decidedly,  I  made  a  good  stroke 
in  coming  here." 

He  returned  to  his  place  near  the  chimney,  thinking  that 
the  time  for  his  interview  had  probably  arrived.  When 
the  Breton  opened  the  door  he  found  the  visitor  so  absorbed 


342  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

in  his  orisons  that  he  never  stirred.  The  peasant  went  to 
him,  touched  him  gently  on  the  shoulder,  and  asked  him 
to  follow  him  ;  Courtin  obeyed,  after  ending  his  prayer  as 
he  began  it,  by  making  the  sign  of  the  cross,  which  the 
Breton  imitated. 

The  farmer  was  now  shown  into  the  same  room  where 
Maître  Pascal  had  formerly  received  Michel  ;  on  this  occa- 
sion, however,  Maître  Pascal  was  much  moi*e  seriously 
employed.  Before  him  was  a  table  covered  with  papers, 
and  Courtin  fancied  he  saw  the  shining  of  various  gold- 
pieces  among  a  pile  of  opened  letters,  which  seemed  to 
have  been  lately  heaped  there  as  if  to  hide  them. 

Maître  Pascal  intercepted  the  farmer's  glance;  at  first 
he  was  not  displeased,  attributing  it  to  nothing  more  than 
the  inquisitive  interest  which  the  peasantry  always  attach 
to  the  sight  of  gold  and  silver.  Nevertheless,  as  he  did 
not  choose  to  allow  that  curiosity  to  go  too  far,  he  pre- 
tended to  search  for  something  in  a  drawer,  and  in  order 
to  do  so  threw  up  an  end  of  the  long  green  table-cloth  so 
that  it  covered  the  pile  of  papers  effectually.  Then,  turn- 
ing to  his  visitor  he  said  roughly  :  — 

"  What  do  you  want  ?  " 

aTo  fulfil  an  errand." 

"  Who  sends  you  ?  " 

"Monsieur  de  la  Logerie." 

"  Ah,  do  you  belong  to  that  young  man  ?  " 

"I  am  his  farmer,  his  confidential  man." 

"Then  say  what  you  have  to  say." 

"But  I  don't  know  that  I  can  do  that,"  said  Courtin, 
boldly. 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  you  are  not  the  person  to  whom  Monsieur  de 
la  Logerie  sent  me." 

"Who  was  it,  then?"  asked  Maître  Pascal,  frowning 
with  some  uneasiness. 

"Another  person,  to  whom  you  were  to  take  me." 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  returned  Maître  Pascal, 


COURTIN  FINGERS  HIS  FIFTY  THOUSAND  FRANCS.       343 

unable  to  conceal  the  impatience  he  felt  at  what  he  sup- 
posed to  be  an  unpardonable  piece  of  heedlessness  on 
Michel's  part. 

Courtin,  noticing  his  annoyance,  saw  that  he  had  gone 
too  far;  but  it  was  dangerous  to  beat  too  rapid  a  retreat. 

"Come,"  said  Pascal,  "will  you,  or  will  you  not  tell  me 
what  you  are  here  for  ?     I  have  no  time  to  waste." 

"Bless  me  !  I  don't  know  what  to  do,  my  good  gentle- 
man,'' said  Courtin.  "I  love  my  young  master  enough  to 
jump  into  the  fire  for  him.  When  he  says  to  me  *  do  this  ' 
or  '  do  that,'  I  always  try  to  execute  his  orders  just  as  he 
gives  them,  so  as  to  deserve  his  confidence  ;  and  he  did  not 
tell  me  to  give  his  message  to  you." 

"What  is  your  name,  my  good  man  ? " 

"Courtin,  at  your  service." 

"  What  parish  do  you  belong  to  ?  " 

"La  Logerie." 

Maître  Pascal  took  up  a  note-book,  and  looked  it  over 
for  a  few  moments;  then  he  fixed  an  investigating  and 
distrustful  eye  on  Courtin. 

"  You  are  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Yes,  since  1830."  Then,  observing  Maître  Pascal's 
increasing  coldness,  "It  was  my  mistress,  Madame  la 
baronne,  who  had  me  nominated,"  he  added. 

"Did  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie  only  give  you  a  verbal 
message  for  the  person  to  whom  he  sent  you  ?  " 

"Yes;  I  have  a  bit  of  a  letter  here,  but  it  is  n't  for  that 
person." 

"  Can  I  see  that  bit  of  a  letter  ?  " 

"Of  course;  there's  no  secret  in  it,  because  it  isn't 
sealed." 

And  Courtin  held  out  to  Maître  Pascal  the  paper  Michel 
had  given  him  for  Bertha,  in  which  Petit-Pierre  begged 
her  to  come  to  Nantes. 

"How happens  it  that  this  paper  is  still  in  your  hands  ? " 
asked  Maître  Pascal.     "It  is  dated  some  da}'s  ago." 

"Because  one  can't  do  everything  all  at  once;  and  I  am 


344  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

not  going  back  our  way  just  yet,  and  till  I  do  I  can't  meet 
the  person  to  whom  I  'in  to  give  the  note." 

Maître  Pascal's  eyes  had  never  left  the  farmer's  face 
from  the  moment  he  had  failed  to  find  Courtin's  name  on 
the  list  of  those  whose  loyalty  could  be  trusted.  The 
latter  was  now  affecting  the  same  idiotic  simplicity  that 
had  succeeded  so  well  with  the  captain  of  the  "Jeune 
Charles." 

"Come,  my  good  man,"  said  Maître  Pascal,  "it  is 
impossible  for  you  to  give  your  message  to  any  one  but 
me.  Do  so  if  you  think  proper;  if  not,  go  back  to  your 
master,  and  tell  him  he  must  come  himself." 

"I  sha'n't  do  that,  my  dear  monsieur,"  replied  Courtin. 
"My  master  is  condemned  to  death,  and  I  don't  wish  to 
say  a  word  to  bring  him  back  to  Nantes.  He  is  better  off 
with  its.  I  '11  tell  the  whole  thing  to  you;  you  can  do 
what  you  think  best  about  it,  and  if  Monsieur  is  not 
pleased,  he  may  scold  me;  I'd  rather  that  than  bring 
him  here." 

This  artless  expression  of  devotion  reconciled  Maître 
Pascal  in  a  degree  to  the  farmer,  whose  first  answer  had 
seriously  alarmed  him. 

"Go  on,  my  good  man,  and  I  will  answer  for  it  your 
master  will  not  blame  you." 

"The  matter  is  soon  told:  Monsieur  Michel  wants  me 
to  tell  you,  or  rather  tell  Monsieur  Petit-Pierre,  —  for  that 
is  the  name  of  the  person  he  sent  me  to  find,  —  " 

"  Go  on  !  "  said  Maître  Pascal,  smiling. 

"  I  was  to  tell  him  that  he  had  discovered  the  man  who 
ordered  the  ship  to  sail  a  few  moments  before  Monsieur 
Petit-Pierre,  Mademoiselle  Mary,  and  himself  reached  the 
rendezvous." 

"  And  who  may  that  man  be  ?  " 

"  One  named  Joseph  Picaut,  lately  hostler  at  the  Point 
du  Jour." 

"True;  the  man  whom  we  placed  there  has  disappeared 
since  yesterday,"  said  Maître  Pascal.   "  Go  on,  Courtin  !  " 


COURTIN  FINGERS  HIS  FIFTY  THOUSAND  FRANCS.       345 

"I  was  to  warn  Monsieur  Petit-Pierre  to  beware  of  this 
Picaut  in  town,  and  to  say  he  would  look  out  for  him  in 
the  country.     And  that 's  all." 

"Very  good;  thank  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie  for  his  in- 
formation. And  now  that  I  have  received  it,  I  can  assure 
you  that  it  was  intended  for  me." 

"That 's  enough  to  satisfy  me,"  said  Courtin,  rising. 

Maître  Pascal  accompanied  the  farmer  as  he  went  out 
with  much  civility,  and  did  for  him  what  Courtin  had 
noticed  that  he  did  not  do  for  Maître  Loriot,  —  he  followed 
him  to  the  very  door  of  the  street. 

Courtin  was  too  wily  himself  to  mistake  the  meaning  of 
these  attentions;  and  he  was  not  surprised,  when  he  had 
gone  about  twenty  paces  from  the  house,  to  hear  the  door 
open  and  close  behind  him.  He  did  not  turn  round  ;  but, 
certain  that  he  was  followed,  he  walked  slowly,  like  a  man 
at  leisure,  stopping  to  gaze  like  a  countryman  into  all  the 
shop-windows,  reading  the  posters  on  the  walls,  and  care- 
fully avoiding  everything  that  might  confirm  the  suspi- 
cions he  had  not  been  able  to  destroy  in  Maître  Pascal's 
mind.  This  constraint  was  no  annoyance  to  him;  in  fact, 
he  enjoyed  his  morning,  feeling  that  he  was  on  the  verge 
of  obtaining  the  reward  of  his  trouble. 

Just  as  he  arrived  in  front  of  the  hôtel  des  Colonies 
he  saw  Maître  Loriot  under  the  portico,  talking  to  a 
stranger.  Courtin,  affecting  great  surprise,  went  straight 
to  the  notary,  and  inquired  how  he  came  to  be  at  Nantes 
when  it  was  not  the  market-day.  Then  he  asked  the 
notary  if  he  would  give  him  a  seat  in  his  cabriolet  back  to 
Lege,  to  which  the  latter  very  willingly  assented,  saying, 
however,  that  he  still  had  a  few  errands  to  do  and  should 
not  be  ready  to  leave  Nantes  for  four  or  five  hours,  and 
advising  Courtin  to  wait  in  some  café. 

Now,  a  café  was  a  luxury  the  farmer  would  not  allow 
himself  under  any  circumstances,  and  that  day  least  of  all. 
In  his  religious  fervor  he  wont  devoutly  to  church,  where 
he  assisted  at  vespers  said  for  the  canons;  after  which  he 


346  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

returned  to  Maître  Loriot's  hotel,  sat  down  on  a  stone 
bench  under  a  yew-tree,  and  went  to  sleep,  or  pretended  to 
do  so,  in  the  calm  and  peaceful  slumber  of  an  easy  con- 
science. 

Two  hours  later  the  notary  returned;  he  told  Courtin 
that  unexpected  business  would  detain  him  at  Nantes,  and 
that  he  could  not  start  for  Lege  before  ten  o'clock.  This 
did  not  suit  the  farmer,  whose  appointment  with  Monsieur 
Hyacinthe  (the  name,  it  will  be  remembered,  of  the  mys- 
terious man  of  Aigrefeuille)  was  from  seven  to  eight  o'clock 
at  Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu.  He  therefore  told  Mon- 
sieur Loriot  that  he  must  give  up  the  honor  of  his  company 
and  go  on  foot,  for  the  sun  was  getting  low  and  he  wanted 
to  get  home  before  night-fall. 

When  Courtin,  sitting  on  the  bench,  had  first  opened  his 
eyes,  he  saw  the  Breton  servant  watching  him;  he  now 
paid  no  attention  to  him  and  seemed  not  to  see  him  as  he 
started  to  keep  his  rendezvous.  The  Breton  followed  him 
over  the  river;  but  Courtin  never  once  betrayed,  by  look- 
ing backward,  the  usual  uneasiness  of  those  whose  con- 
sciences are  ill  at  ease.  The  result  was  that  the  Breton 
returned  to  his  master  and  assured  him  that  it  was  a  great 
mistake  to  distrust  the  worthy  peasant,  who  spent  his 
leisure  hours  in  the  most  innocent  amusements  and  pious 
practices  ;  so  that  even  Maître  Pascal,  cautious  as  he  was, 
began  to  think  Michel  less  to  blame  for  confiding  in  so 
faithful  a  servant. 


THE   TAVERN    OF   THE   GRAND    SAINT-JACQUES.        341 


XXXV. 

THE  TAVERN  OF  THE  GRAND  SAINT- JACQUES. 

One  word  on  the  lay  of  the  land  about  the  village  of  Saint- 
Philbert.  Without  this  little  topographical  preface,  which 
shall  be  short,  like  all  our  prefaces,  it  would  be  difficult 
for  our  readers  to  follow  in  detail  the  scenes  we  are  now 
about  to  lay  before  their  eyes. 

The  village  of  Saint-Philbert  stands  at  the  angle  formed 
by  the  river  Boulogne  as  it  falls  into  the  lake  of  Grand- 
Lieu;  the  village  is  on  the  left  bank  of  the  river.  The 
church  and  the  principal  houses  are  somewhere  about  fif- 
teen hundred  yards  from  the  lake;  the  main,  in  fact  the 
only  street  follows  the  river-bank,  and  the  lower  it  goes 
to  the  lake,  the  fewer  and  poorer  the  houses  ;  so  that  when 
the  vast  blue  sheet  of  water,  framed  in  reeds,  which  forms 
the  terminus  of  the  street  is  reached,  there  is  nothing  to 
be  seen  but  a  few  thatched  huts  occupied  by  men  who  are 
employed  in  the  fisheries. 

Yet  there  is,  or  rather  was  at  the  time  of  which  we 
write,  one  exception  to  this  decadence  of  the  lower  end  of 
the  village  street.  About  thirty  steps  away  from  the  huts 
we  have  mentioned  stood  a  brick  and  stone  house,  with  red 
roofs  and  green  shutters,  surrounded  with  hay  and  straw 
stacks,  like  sentinels  round  a  camp,  and  peopled  with  a 
world  of  cows,  sheep,  chickens,  ducks,  — all  either  lowing 
and  bleating  in  the  stables  or  clucking  and  gabbling  before 
the  door  as  they  preened  themselves  in  the  dust  of  the 
road. 

The  road  served  as  the  court-yard  of  the  house,  which, 
if  deprived  of  that  useful  resort,  could  still  fall  back  upon 


348  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

its  gardens,  which  are  simply  the  most  magnificent  and 
productive  of  all  the  country  round.  From  the  road  the 
crests  of  the  fruit-trees  can  be  seen  above  the  farm-build- 
ings, covered  in  spring-time  with  the  rosy  snow  of  their 
blossoms  ;  in  summer,  with  fruits  of  all  kinds  ;  and  during 
nine  months  of  the  year,  with  verdure.  These  trees  spread 
in  a  semi-circle  about  a  thousand  feet  southerly,  to  a  little 
hill  crowned  with  ruins  which  looks  down  upon  the  waters 
of  the  lake  of  Grand-Lieu. 

This  house  is  the  inn  kept  by  the  mother  of  Marianne 
Picaut.  These  ruins  are  those  of  the  château  de  Saint- 
Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu. 

The  high  walls  and  gigantic  towers  of  this  the  most 
celebrated  baronial  castle  in  the  province,  built  to  hold 
the  country  in  check  and  command  the  waters  of  the  lake, 
the  gloomy  arches  that  once  echoed  to  the  clanking  spurs 
of  Comte  Gilles  de  Retz  as  he  trod  its  paved  floors,  meditat- 
ing on  those  monstrous  debauches  which  surpassed  all  that 
Rome  in  its  decadence  ever  invented,  —  now,  dismantled, 
dilapidated,  swathed  in  ivy,  overgrown  with  gilliflowers, 
crumbling  on  all  sides,  have  descended,  from  degradation 
to  degradation,  to  the  lowest  of  all  ;  grand,  savage,  terrible 
as  they  once  were,  they  are  now  humbly  utilitarian;  they 
have  been  reduced  at  last  to  making  a  living  for  a  family 
of  peasants,  descendants  of  poor  serfs  who  in  former  days 
regarded  them,  no  doubt,  with  fear  and  trembling. 

These  ruins  shelter  the  gardens  from  the  northwest 
wind,  so  fatal  to  fertility,  and  make  this  little  corner  of 
earth  a  perfect  Eldorado,  where  all  things  grow  and  pros- 
per, —  from  the  native  pear  to  the  grape,  the  fruiting 
sorbus  to  the  fig-tree. 

But  this  was  not  the  only  service  which  the  old  feudal 
castle  did  to  its  new  proprietors.  In  the  lower  halls, 
cooled  by  currents  of  impetuous  air,  they  kept  their  fruits 
and  garden  products,  preserving  them  in  good  condition 
after  the  ordinary  season  had  passed;  thus  doubling  their 
value.     And   besides  this  source  of  profit,  the  dungeons, 


THE    TAVERN   OF   THE    (iKAND   SAINT-JACQUES.         o49 

where  Gilles  de  Retz  had  piled  his  victims,  were  now  a 
dairy,  the  butter  and  cheese  of  which  were  justly  cele- 
brated. This  is  what  time  has  done  with  the  Titanic 
works  of  the  former  lords  of  Saint-Philbert. 

One  word  now  on  what  they  once  were. 

The  château  de  Saint-Philbert  consisted  originally  of  a 
vast  parallelogram  enclosed  with  walls,  bathed  on  one  side 
by  the  waters  of  the  lake  and  protected  on  the  other  side 
by  a  broad  moat  hollowed  in  the  rock.  Four  square  towers 
flanked  the  four  corners  of  this  enormous  mass  of  stone; 
a  citadel  in  the  centre,  with  its  portcullis  bristling  with 
spikes,  defended  the  entrance.  Opposite  to  the  citadel,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  castle,  a  fifth  square  tower,  taller 
and  more  imposing  than  the  rest,  commanded  the  whole 
structure,  and  the  lake,  which  surrounded  it  on  three  sides. 

With  the  exception  of  this  fifth  tower  and  the  citadel, 
or  keep,  all  the  rest  of  the  fortress,  walls  and  main-build- 
ings, had  pretty  much  crumbled  away,  and  time  had  not 
entirely  spared  the  great  tower  itself.  The  rotten  beams 
of  the  first  floor,  unable  to  support  the  stones  which  year 
by  year  slid  down  upon  them  in  greater  numbers,  had  sunk 
to  the  ground-floor,  raising  it  by  over  a  foot,  leaving  no 
other  ceiling  in  the  tower  than  the  rafters  of  the  roof. 

It  was  in  this  lower  room  that  the  grandfather  of  the 
widow  Picaut  had  principally  kept  his  fruit,  and  the  walls 
were  lined  with  shelves  on  which  the  good  man  spread  in 
winter  the  various  products  of  his  garden.  The  doors  and 
windows  of  this  portion  of  the  tower  had  remained  more 
or  less  intact,  and  at  one  of  these  windows  could  still  be 
seen  an  iron  bar  covered  with  rust,  which  undoubtedly 
dated  from  the  days  of  Comte  Gilles. 

The  other  towers  and  the  walls  of  the  main  building 
were  completely  in  ruins;  the  masses  of  masonry  which 
had  fallen  had  rolled  either  into  the  court-yard,  which  they 
obstructed,  or  into  the  lake,  which  covered  them  with  its 
reeds  at  all  times  and  its  foam  in  stormy  weather.  The 
citadel,  about  as  intact  as  the  great  tower,  was  crowded 


350  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 

with  an  enormous  mass  of  ivy  which  took  the  place  of  a 
roof;  in  it  were  two  small  chambers,  which,  notwithstand- 
ing the  colossal  appearance  of  the  structure,  were  not  more 
than  eight  or  ten  feet  square,  owing  to  the  enormous  thick- 
ness of  the  walls. 

The  inner  court-yard,  used  in  feudal  days  as  the  bar- 
rack-ground of  the  castle's  defenders,  obstructed  by  the  rub- 
bish which  time  had  heaped  there,  —  fragments  of  columns 
and  battlements,  broken  arches,  dilapidated  statues,  —  was 
now  impassable.  A  narrow  path  led  to  the  great  tower; 
another,  less  carefully  cleared,  led  to  a  remaining  vestige 
of  the  east  tower,  where  a  stone  staircase  was  actually  left 
standing,  by  which  all  persons  desirous  of  enjoying  a  beau- 
tiful view  could,  after  a  series  of  acrobatic  feats,  reach  the 
platform  of  the  main  tower  by  following  a  gallery  which 
ran  along  the  wall  like  those  Alpine  paths  cut  on  the  face 
of  the  rock  between  precipice  and  mountain. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that,  except  during  the  period 
of  the  year  when  the  fruits  were  stored  there,  no  one  fre- 
quented these  ruins  of  the  château  de  Saint-Philbert.  At 
that  period  a  watchman  was  stationed  there,  who  slept  in 
the  keep;  all  the  rest  of  the  year  the  gates  of  the  tower 
were  locked  and  the  place  was  abandoned  to  lovers  of  his- 
torical reminiscences,  and  to  the  boys  of  the  village,  who 
pervaded  the  old  ruins,  where  they  found  nests  to  pillage, 
flowers  to  pick,  dangers  to  brave,  — all  things  of  eager 
attraction  to  children. 

It  was  in  these  ruins  that  Courtin  had  appointed  to  meet 
Monsieur  Hyacinthe.  He  knew  they  would  be  absolutely 
deserted  at  the  hour  he  named  to  his  associate,  inasmuch 
as  the  lingering  ill-repute  of  the  place  drove  away  at  night 
all  the  village  urchins  who,  as  long  as  the  sun  was  above 
the  horizon,  scampered  like  lizards  among  the  dentelled 
ridges  of  the  old  ruin. 

The  mayor  of  La  Logerie  left  Nantes  about  five  o'clock; 
he  was  on  foot,  and  yet  he  walked  so  fast  that  he  was  an 
hour   earlier   than  he  needed  to  be  when  he  crossed  the 


THE  TAVERN  OF  THE  GRAND  SAINT-JACQUES.    351 

bridge  which  led  into  the  village  of  Saint-Philbert.    Maître 

Courtin  was  somewhat  of  a  personage  in  the  village.  To 
see  him  desert  the  Grand  Saint- Jacques  (the  inn  before 
which  he  usually  tied  his  pony  Sweetheart)  in  favor  of 
the  Pomme  de  Pin,  the  tavern  kept  by  the  mother  of  the 
widow  Picaut,  would  have  been  an  event  which,  as  he 
very  well  knew,  would  have  set  the  village  tongues  a  wag- 
ging. He  was  so  convinced  of  this  that,  although,  being 
deprived  of  his  pony  and  never  taking  any  refreshment 
except  what  was  offered  to  him,  it  seemed  a  useless  matter 
to  go  to  an  inn  at  all,  the  mayor  of  La  Logerie  stopped,  as 
usual,  before  the  door  of  the  Grand  Saint-Jacques,  where 
he  held  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  village  (who,  since  the 
double  defeat  at  Chêne  and  La  Pénissière,  had  drawn  closer 
to  him)  a  conversation  which,  under  present  circumstances, 
was  not  unimportant  to  him. 

"Maître  Courtin,"  said  one  man,  "is  it  true  what  they 
say  ?  " 

"  What  do  they  say,  Matthieu  ?  "  replied  Courtin.  "  Tell 
me;  I  'd  like  to  know." 

"  Hang  it  !  they  say  you  've  turned  your  coat,  and  noth- 
ing can  be  seen  but  the  lining  of  it,  —  so  that  what  was 
blue  is  now  white." 

"  Well  done  !  "  said  Courtin;  "  if  that  is  n't  nonsense  !  " 

"You  've  given  occasion  for  it,  my  man;  and  since  your 
young  master  went  over  to  the  Whites  it  is  a  fact  that 
you  've  stopped  gabbling  against  them  as  you  once  did." 

"  Gabbling  !  "  exclaimed  Courtin,  with  his  slyest  look, 
"  what 's  the  good  of  that  ?  I  have  something  better  to  do 
than  gabble,  and  —  and  you  '11  hear  of  it  soon,  my  lad." 

"  So  much  the  better  !  for,  don't  you  see,  Maître  Courtin, 
all  these  public  troubles  are  death  to  business.  If  patriots 
can't  agree,  they  '11  die  of  poverty  and  hunger  instead 
of  being  shot  like  our  forefathers.  Whereas,  if  we  could 
only  get  rid  of  those  troublesome  gars  who  roam  the  forests 
about  here  and  make  trouble,  business  would  soon  pick  up, 
and  that 's  all  we  want." 


352  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Roaming  ?  "  repeated  Courtin,  "  who  are  roaming  ? 
Seems  to  rne  that  none  but  ghosts  are  left  to  roam  now." 

"Pooh  !  there  's  plenty  of  them  left.  It  is  n't  ten  min- 
utes since  I  saw  the  boldest  of  them  go  by,  gun  in  hand, 
pistols  in  his  belt, — just  as  if  there  weren't  any  red- 
breeches  in  the  land." 

"  Who  was  he  ?  " 

"  Joseph  Picaut,  by  God  !  —  the  man  who  killed  his 
brother." 

"Joseph  Picaut!  here?"  exclaimed  Courtin,  turning 
livid.     "It  isn't  possible!" 

"  It 's  as  true  as  you  live,  Maître  Courtin  !  as  true  as 
there  is  a  God  !  He  did  have  on  a  sailor's  hat  and  jacket, 
but  never  mind,  I  recognized  him  all  the  same." 

Maître  Courtin  reflected  a  moment.  The  plan  he  had 
laid  in  his  head,  which  rested  on  the  existence  of  the  house 
with  two  issues,  and  the  daily  intercourse  of  Maître  Pascal 
with  Petit-Pierre,  might  fail;  in  which  case,  he  had  Bertha 
to  fall  back  upon  as  a  last  resource.  There  would  then 
remain,  in  order  to  discover  Petit-Pierre's  retreat,  one 
means  open  to  him,  —  the  means  he  had  already  failed  in 
with  Mary,  —  namely,  to  follow  Bertha  when  she  went  to 
Nantes.  If  Bertha  saw  Joseph  Picaut  all  was  lost;  still 
worse  would  it  be  if  Bertha  put  Picaut  in  communication 
with  Michel  !  Then  the  part  he  had  played  in  stopping 
the  embarkation  would  be  disclosed  to  the  young  baron, 
and  the  farmer  was  a  ruined  man. 

Courtin  asked  for  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  wrote  a  few  lines, 
and  gave  them  to  the  man  who  had  spoken  to  him. 

"Here,  gars  Matthieu,"  he  said,  "here's  a  proof  that 
I  'm  a  patriot  and  that  I  don't  turn  round  like  a  weather- 
cock to  the  wind  of  any  master.  You  accuse  me  of  follow- 
ing my  young  landlord  in  all  his  performances  ;  well,  the 
fact  is  that  I  have  only  known  within  the  last  hour  where 
he  is  hiding,  and  now  I  am  going  to  lay  hands  on  him. 
The  more  occasion  I  have  to  destroy  the  enemies  of  the 
nation,  the  better  pleased  I  am,  and  the  more  I  hasten  to 


THE   TAVERN   OF   THE   GRAND   SAINT-JACQUES.        353 

take  advantage  of  it;  and  what  's  more,  I  do  it  without 
inquiring  whether  it  is  to  my  advantage  or  disadvantage, 
or  whether  the  persons  I  denounce  are  my  friends  or 
not." 

The  peasant,  who  was  a  double-dyed  Blue,  shook  Courtin  \s 
hand  heartily. 

"  Are  your  legs  good  ?  "  continued  the  latter. 

"I  should  think  so  !  "  said  the  peasant. 

"  Well,  then,  carry  that  to  Mantes  at  once  ;  and  as  I  have 
a  good  many  haystacks  out,  I  rely  on  you  to  keep  my 
secret;  for,  you  understand,  if  I  'm  suspected  of  having 
the  young  baron  arrested,  those  stacks  will  never  get  into 
my  barn." 

The  peasant  made  a  promise  of  secrecy,  and  Courtin,  as 
it  was  now  dusk,  left  the  inn  on  the  right,  made  a  tack 
across  the  fields,  and  then,  returning  cautiously  on  his 
steps,  took  a  path  which  led  to  the  ruins  of  Saint-Phil- 
be  rt. 

He  reached  them  by  the  shore  of  the  lake,  followed  the 
moat,  and  entered  the  court-yard  by  a  stone  bridge  which 
had  long  replaced  the  portcullis  that  gave  entrance  to  the 
citadel. 

As  he  entered  the  court-yard  he  whistled  softly.  At  the 
signal  a  man  sitting  on  the  fallen  masonry  rose  and  came 
to  him.     The  man  was  Monsieur  Hyacinthe. 

"  Is  that  you  ?  "  he  said,  as  he  approached  with  some 
caution. 

"Yes,"  said  Courtin,  "don't  be  alarmed." 

"What  news  ?" 

"Good;  but  this  is  not  the  place  to  tell  it." 

"  Why  not  ?  " 

"Because  it  is  as  dark  as  a  pocket.  I  almost  walked 
over  you  before  I  knew  it.  A  man  might  be  hidden  here 
at  our  feet  and  we  not  be  the  wiser.  Come  !  the  affair  is 
in  too  good  shape  just  now  to  risk  anything." 

"Very  good;  but  where  will  you  find  a  lonelier  place 
than  this  ?  " 

vol.  ii.  —  23 


354  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"We  must  find  one.  If  I  knew  of  an  open  desert  in 
the  neighborhood  I  'd  go  there  and  speak  low.  But,  for 
want  of  a  desert,  we  '11  find  some  place  where  we  are  cer- 
tain of  being  alone." 

"Goon;  I '11  follow  you." 


JUDAS   AND   JUDAS.  35i 


XXXVI. 


JUDAS    AND    JUDAS. 


It  was  toward  the  great  middle  tower  that  Courtin  now 
guided  his  companion,  not  without  stopping  once  or  twice 
to  listen;  for,  whether  it  was  reality  or  fancy,  the  mayor 
of  La  Logerie  thought  he  saw  shadows  gliding  near  them. 
But  as  Monsieur  Hyacinthe  reassured  him  after  every 
pause,  he  ended  by  thinking  it  an  effect  of  imagination; 
and  when  they  reached  the  tower  he  opened  a  door,  entered 
first,  took  from  his  pocket  a  wax  candle  and  a  sulphur 
match,  lighted  the  candle  and  carried  it  cautiously  into  all 
the  corners  and  angularities  of  the  room  to  make  sure  that 
no  one  was  hidden  there. 

A  door,  cut  in  the  wall  to  the  right  and  partly  broken 
down  by  the  rubbish  of  the  ceiling,  excited  his  fears  and 
also  his  curiosity.  He  pushed  it  open  and  found  himself 
in  front  of  a  yawning  space  from  which  a  damp  vapor  was 
rising. 

"  Look  there  !  "  said  Monsieur  Hyacinthe,  who  followed 
him,  showing  Courtin  a  wide  breach  in  the  outer  wall, 
through  which  they  could  see  the  lake  sparkling  in  the 
moonlight.     "  Look  at  that  !  " 

"I  see  it  plain  enough,"  said  Courtin,  laughing.  "Yes, 
Mère  Chompré's  dairy  needs  repairing;  since  I  was  here 
last  the  hole  in  that  wall  is  double  the  size  it  used  to  be. 
One  might  get  a  boat  in  now." 

Raising  his  light  and  holding  it  outward  he  tried  to 
look  into  the  depths  below;  not  succeeding,  he  took  a  stone 
and  flung  it  into  the  water,  where  it  fell  with  a  sonorous 
noise  that  sounded  like  a  threat,  while  the  wash  of  the 


356  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

ruffled  water  against  the  steps  and  the  foundations  gave  an 
answering  ripple. 

"Well,"  said  Courtin,  "there  is  evidently  nothing  there 
that  can  hear  us  but  the  fish  of  the  lake;  and  the  old 
proverb  says,  you  know,  'Mute  as  a  fish.'' 

Just  then  a  stone  came  rolling  down  from  the  roof  along 
the  tower  wall  and  fell  into  the  court-yard. 

"  Did  you  hear  that  ?  "  asked  Monsieur  Hyacinthe, 
uneasily. 

"Yes,"  replied  Courtin.  Unlike  his  companion,  who 
seemed  to  grow  more  timorous  in  the  gigantic  shadow 
thrown  by  the  ruins,  the  farmer  recovered  courage  after 
convincing  himself  that  no  human  being  could  possibly  be 
lurking  in  the  court-yard.  "I  've  seen  large  bits  of  masonry 
fall  from  the  top  of  that  old  tower  just  from  the  blow  of 
a  bat's  wing." 

"Hé,  hé!"  exclaimed  Monsieur  Hyacinthe,  with  bis 
nasal  laugh,  which  was  like  that  of  a  German  Jew  ;  "  it  is 
precisely  the  night-birds  we  have  to  fear." 

"Yes,  the  Chouans,"  replied  Courtin.  "But  no  !  these 
ruins  are  too  near  the  village;  and  though  a  villain  I 
thought  I  had  got  rid  of  has  been  seen  roaming  about  here 
to-day,  I  feel  sure  he  won't  dare  to  risk  a  visit  by  night." 

"  Put  out  your  light,  then  !  " 

"ISTo,  no;  we  don't  need  it  to  talk  by,  that's  true,  but 
we  have  something  else  to  do  than  talk,  I  'm  thinking." 

"  Have  we  ?  "  said  Monsieur  Hyacinthe,  eagerly. 

"Yes.  Come  into  this  recess,  where  we  shall  be  shel- 
tered, and  where  the  light  can  be  hidden." 

So  saying  he  led  Monsieur  Hyacinthe  beneath  the  arch- 
way that  led  down  to  the  gate  of  the  cellars,  placed  the 
light  behind  a  fallen  stone,  and  sat  down  himself  on  the 
cellar  steps. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  said  Monsieur  Hyacinthe,  plant- 
ing himself  in  front  of  Courtin,  "that  you  are  going  to 
give  me  the  name  of  the  street  and  the  number  of  the 
house  in  which  the  duchess  is  hidden  ?  " 


JUDAS   AND   JUDAS.  357 

"That,  or  something  like  it,"  replied  Conrtin,  who  had 
heard  the  clinking  of  gold  on  Monsieur  Hyacinthe's  per- 
son, his  eyes  sparkling  with  greed. 

"Come,  don't  lose  time  in  useless  words.  Do  you  know 
where  she  is  living  ?  " 

"No." 

"Then  why  have  you  brought  me  here  ?  Ha  !  if  I  have 
a  regret  it  is  that  I  ever  committed  myself  to  a  dawdler 
like  you." 

For  all  answer  Courtin  took  the  paper  he  had  picked 
from  the  ashes  of  the  hearth  in  the  rue  du  Marché  and 
held  it  out  to  Monsieur  Hyacinthe,  raising  the  light  that 
he  might  see  to  read  it. 

"Who  wrote  that  ?  "  asked  the  Jew. 

"The  young  girl  I  told  you  about,  who  was  with  the 
person  we  are  in  search  of." 

"Yes,  but  she  is  not  with  her  now." 

"That  is  true." 

"Therefore  I  should  be  glad  to  know  what  good  this 
letter  is.  What  does  it  prove  ?  How  can  it  help  our 
purpose  ? " 

Courtin  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  replaced  the  candle 
beside  the  stone. 

"Really,  for  a  city  gentleman,"  he  said,  "you  are  not 
very  sharp." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?  " 

"Don't  you  see  that  the  duchess  offers  an  asylum  to  the 
man  to  whom  the  letter  is  addressed,  in  case  he  is  in  any 
danger  ?" 

"Yes,  what  next  ?" 

"  Next  ?  Why,  if  we  put  him  in  danger  he  is  certain  to 
take  it." 

"And  then?" 

"Then  we  can  search  the  house  he  goes  to,  and  catch 
them  all  together." 

Monsieur  Hyacinthe  reflected. 

"Yes,  the  scheme  is  a  good  one,"  he  said,  turning  the 


358  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

letter  over  and  over  in  his  hand  and  holding  it  near  the 
candle  to  make  sure  it  contained  no  other  writing. 

"I  should  think  it  was  a  good  one  !  "  exclaimed  Courtin. 

"  Where  does  that  man  live  ?  "  asked  Monsieur  Hyacinthe, 
carelessly. 

"Oh,  as  for  telling  you  where  he  lives,  that's  another 
matter.  I  've  told  you  the  scheme,  and  you  think  it  a  good 
one,  —  you  said  so  yourself  ;  if  I  told  you  how  to  carry  it 
out  I  should  just  be  giving  myself  away  for  nothing." 

"  But  suppose  the  man  does  not  accept  the  retreat  offered 
to  him,  and  does  not  go  to  the  house  where  she  is  hidden  ?  " 
said  Monsieur  Hyacinthe. 

"Oh,  that 's  impossible  if  we  follow  a  plan  I  '11  explain 
to  you.  His  own  house  has  two  issues.  We  go  to  one 
with  a  posse  of  soldiers;  he  escapes  by  the  other,  which 
we  leave  clear;  he  sees  no  danger  that  way,  but  we  follow 
him  from  a  distance.  You  see  for  yourself  the  thing 
can't  fail.  And  now,  unfasten  your  belt  and  pay  me  the 
money." 

"  Will  you  come  with  me  ?  " 

"Of  course  I  will." 

"  From  now  till  the  game  is  played  you  will  not  leave  me 
a  single  instant  ?  " 

"I  don't  wish  to,  inasmuch  as  you  only  pay  me  half 
now." 

"But  remember  this,"  said  Monsieur  Hyacinthe,  with 
a  determination  scarcely  to  be  expected  from  his  pacific 
demeanor,  "I  warn  you  that  if  you  make  even  one  sus- 
picious gesture,  if  I  have  the  slightest  reason  to  think  you 
are  deceiving  me,  I  will  blow  your  brains  out." 

So  saying  Monsieur  Hyacinths  drew  a  pistol  from  his 
pocket  and  showed  it  to  his  companion.  The  face  of  the 
man  who  made  the  threat  was  cold  and  calm,  but  a  danger- 
ous flash  in  his  eye  convinced  the  other  that  he  was  a  man 
to  keep  his  word. 

"As  you  please,"  said  Courtin;  "and  all  the  easier  for 
you  because  I  have  no  weapon." 


JUDAS   AND   JUDAS.  359 

"That 's  a  blunder,"  remarked  Monsieur  Hyacinthe. 

"Come,"  said  Courtin,  "pay  me  what  you  promised,  and 
swear  to  me  that  if  the  thing  succeeds  you  will  pay  me  as 
much  more." 

"You  may  rely  upon  my  word,  which  is  sacred;  a  man 
is  honest,  or  he  is  not  honest.  But  why  do  you  want  to 
carry  this  gold  yourself,  as  you  and  I  are  not'  to  part  ?  " 
continued  Monsieur  Hyacinthe,  who  seemed  to  have  as 
much  reluctance  to  part  with  his  belt  as  Courtin  had 
eagerness  to  grasp  it. 

"What  !  "  exclaimed  the  latter;  "don't  you  see  I'm  in 
a  fever  to  touch  that  gold,  to  feel  it,  to  handle  it  ?  I  am 
dying  to  know  if  it  is  really  there,  even  if  I  don't  touch 
it.  Why,  for  the  joy  of  that,  for  that  one  moment  of 
happiness  when  I  feel  it  in  my  fingers,  I  've  risked  all  ! 
You  shall  give  it  to  me  now,  or  I  '11  not  say  another  word. 
Yes  !  for  this  one  moment  I  've  braved  everything,  I  've 
summoned  courage,  —  I  who  am  afraid  of  my  shadow,  I 
who  trembled  and  shook  when  I  walked  up  our  avenue  at 
night.  Give  me  that  gold,  give  me  that  gold,  monsieur  ! 
We  have  many  dangers  to  face,  many  risks  to  run  yet; 
that  gold  will  give  me  courage.  Give  me  that  gold  if  you 
wish  me  to  be  as  calm,  as  relentless  as  yourself." 

"Yes,"  replied  Monsieur  Hyacinthe,  who  had  watched 
the  vivid  lighting  up  of  the  peasant's  dull,  wan  face  as  he 
said  these  words.  "Yes,  you  shall  have  the  money  the 
instant  you  give  me  the  address;  but  I  will  have  the 
address,  the  address  !  " 

One  was  as  eager  as  the  other  for  the  thing  each  desired. 
Monsieur  Hyacinthe  rose,  and  took  off  his  belt;  Courtin, 
intoxicated  with  the  metallic  sound  he  heard,  again 
stretched  forth  his  hand  to  seize  it. 

"  One  moment  !  "  cried  Monsieur  Hyacinthe  ;  "  give  and 
take  !  " 

"Yes,  but  let  me  first  see  if  it  is  really  gold  you  have 
there." 

The  Jew  shrugged  his  shoulders,  but  he  yielded  to  the 


360  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

wishes  of  his  accomplice;  he  pulled  the  iron  chain  that 
closed  the  mouth  of  the  leathern  bag,  and  Courtin,  dazzled 
by  the  gleam  of  gold,  felt  a  shudder  pass  through  all  his 
body,  while  with  elongated  neck,  and  fixed  eyes,  and  trem- 
bling lips,  he  plunged  his  hands  with  ineffable,  indescrib- 
able pleasure  into  the  heap  of  coin  which  rippled  through 
his  fingers. 

"  He  lives,  "  he  said,  "  rue  du  Marché,  No.  22  ;  the  other 
door  is  in  an  alley  running  parallel  with  the  rue  du 
Marché." 

Maître  Hyacinthe  released  his  hold  on  the  belt,  which 
Courtin  seized  with  a  deep  sigh  of  satisfaction.  But 
almost  at  the  same  instant  he  raised  his  head  with  a 
terrified  look. 

"What  is  it  ?  "  asked  Monsieur  Hyacinthe. 

"I  heard  steps,"  said  the  farmer,  his  face  convulsed. 

"No,  no,"  said  the  Jew,  "I  heard  nothing.  I  've  been  a 
fool  to  give  you  that  money." 

"  "Why  ?  "  said  Courtin,  clasping  the  belt  to  his  breast  as 
if  afraid  the  other  might  snatch  it  back. 

"Because  it  seems  to  double  your  fears." 

With  a  rapid  movement  Courtin  clutched  his  companion's 
arm. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?  "  asked  Monsieur  Hyacinthe 
again,  beginning  to  feel  uneasy. 

"  I  tell  you  I  hear  steps  overhead  !  "  said  Courtin,  look- 
ing up  to  the  dark  and  gloomy  space  above  them. 

"Nonsense;  perhaps  you  are  ill." 

"I  don't  feel  well,  that 's  true." 

"  Then  let 's  leave  the  place  ;  we  have  nothing  more  to 
do  here,  and  it  is  time  we  were  on  the  way  to  Nantes." 

"  No,  no,  not  yet/' 

"  Why  not  yet  ?  " 

"  Let  us  hide  here  and  listen.  People  are  about,  and  they 
are  watching  for  us  ;  and  if  they  are  watching  for  us  they  '11 
guard  the  door.  Oh,  my  God  !  my  God  !  can  it  be  that 
they  are   after  my  gold   already?"   moaned  the  farmer, 


JUDAS    AND   JUDAS.  361 

trying  to  fasten  the  belt  about  his  waist,  but  trembling  so 
violently  that  he  could  not  do  it. 

"My  good  friend,  you  are  certainly  losing  your  head," 
said  Monsieur  Hyacinthe,  who  proved  to  be  the  more 
courageous  man  of  the  two.  "Let  us  put  out  the  light 
and  hide  in  the  cellar.  We  can  see  from  there  if  you  are 
mistaken." 

"You  are  right,  you  are  right,"  said  Courtin,  blowing 
out  the  candle  as  he  opened  the  cellar  door  and  went  down 
the  first  step  into  the  inundated  vault. 

But  he  went  no  farther.  A  cry  of  terror  burst  from  him, 
in  which  could  be  heard  the  words  :  — 

"  Help,  help  !  Monsieur  Hyacinthe  !  " 

The  latter  laid  a  hand  on  his  pistol,  when  a  powerful 
hand  seized  his  arm  and  twisted  it  as  if  to  break  it.  The 
pain  was  so  great  that  the  Jew  fell  on  his  knees,  the  sweat 
pouring  from  his  face  as  he  cried  out  for  mercy. 

"One  word,  and  I  '11  kill  you  like  the  dog  you  are  !  " 
said  the  voice  of  Maître  Jacques.  Then,  addressing  Joseph 
Picaut,  who  was  just  behind  him,  he  went  on:  "Well, 
do-nothing,  have  n't  you  got  him  ?    What  are  you  about  ?  " 

"  Oh,  the  villain  !  "  exclaimed  Joseph,  in  a  voice  that 
was  broken  and  breathless  from  his  efforts  to  hold  Courtin, 
whom  he  had  seized  the  moment  the  latter  opened  the  door 
to  go  down  the  cellar  stairs,  and  who  was  now  making 
desperate  efforts  to  save,  not  himself,  but  his  gold.  "Oh, 
the  traitor!  he  is  biting  me,  tearing  me.  If  you  hadn't 
forbidden  me  to  bleed  him,  I  'd  soon  have  done  for  him." 

At  the  same  instant  two  bodies  fell  within  six  feet  of 
Monsieur  Hyacinthe,  whom  Maître  Jacques  was  pinning  to 
the  ground. 

"  If  he  kicks  too  long,  kill  him,  kill  him  !  "  said  Maître 
Jacques.  "Now  that  I  know  all  I  want  to  know,  I  don't 
see  why  not." 

"  Damn  it  !  why  did  n't  you  say  so  before,  and  I  'd  have 
finished  him  at  once  !  " 

By  a  violent  effort  Picaut  threw  Courtin  under  him  and 


362  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

got  a  knee  upon  his  breast,  pulling  a  long-bladed  knife 
from  his  belt,  on  which,  dark  as  it  was,  Courtin  saw  the 
light  flashing. 

"Mercy  !  mercy  !  "  cried  the  mayor.  " I  '11  tell  all,  I  '11 
confess  all  ;  but  don't  kill  me  !  " 

Maître  Jacques'  hand  stayed  Picaut's  arm,  which,  in  spite 
of  Courtin's  offer,  was  in  the  act  of  descending  upon  him. 

"Don't  kill  him  !"  said  Maître  Jacques,  "on  reflection, 
he  may  still  be  useful.  Tie  him  up  like  a  sausage,  and 
don't  let  him  stir,  paws  or  toes  !  " 

The  luckless  Courtin  was  so  terrified  that  he  actually 
held  out  his  hands  to  Joseph,  who  bound  them  with  a  slen- 
der, loose  rope  Maître  Jacques  had  made  his  companion 
bring  with  him.  Nevertheless,  the  wretched  man  would 
not  release  his  clutch  on  the  belt  full  of  gold,  which  he 
held  pressed  to  his  stomach  by  his  elbow. 

"  Have  n't  you  bound  him  yet  ?  "  cried  Maître  Jacques, 
impatiently. 

"Let  me  finish  roping  this  paw,"  replied  Joseph. 

"Very  good;  and  when  you've  done  bind  this  fellow, 
too,"  continued  Maître  Jacques,  pointing  to  Monsieur 
Hyacinthe,  whom  he  had  allowed  to  get  upon  his  knees, 
in  which  posture  the  Jew  remained  silent  and  motionless. 

"I  could  do  it  faster  if  there  were  any  light,"  said 
Joseph  Picaut,  provoked  to  find  a  knot  in  his  rope,  which 
in  the  darkness  he  could  not  undo. 

"  Well,  after  all,  "  said  Maître  Jacques,  "  why  the  devil 
are  we  in  a  hurry  ?  Why  not  light  the  lantern  ?  It  would 
do  my  soul  good  to  see  the  faces  of  these  sellers  of  kings 
and  princes." 

Suiting  the  action  to  the  word,  Maître  Jacques  pulled 
out  a  little  lantern  and  lighted  it  with  a  sulphur  match  as 
imperturbably  as  if  he  had  been  in  the  depths  of  his  forest 
of  Touvois  ;  then  he  turned  the  light  full  on  the  faces  of 
Monsieur  Hyacinthe  and  Courtin.  By  the  gleam  of  that 
light  Joseph  Picaut  saw  the  leather  belt  the  farmer  was 
hugging  to  his  breast,  and  he  sprang  forward  to  tear  it 


JUDAS    AND    JUDAS.  363 

from  liirn.  Maître  Jacques  mistook  the  object  of  his  action. 
Thinking  that  the  Chouan's  hatred  to  Courtin  had  got  the 
better  of  him,  and  that  he  meant  to  kill  him,  the  master 
of  rabbits  sprang  forward  to  prevent  it. 

As  he  did  so  a  line  of  fire  darted  from  the  upper  part  of 
the  tower  and  shot  through  the  darkness;  a  dull  explosion 
was  heard  and  Maître  Jacques  fell  head  foremost  on  Cour- 
tin's  body,  who  felt  his  face  covered  with  a  warm  and 
fetid  liquid. 

"Ha!  villain!"  cried  Maître  Jacques,  rising  on  one 
knee  and  addressing  Joseph,  "ha  !  you  have  led  me  into 
a  trap.  I  forgave  you  your  lie,  but  you  shall  pay  for 
your  treachery  !  " 

Kaising  his  pistol,  he  fired  at  close  quarters  on  Pascal 
Picaut's  brother.  The  lantern  rolled  down  the  steps  into 
the  waters  below  and  was  extinguished;  the  smoke  of  the 
two  shots  made  the  darkness  deeper. 

Monsieur  Hyacinthe,  when  Maître  Jacques  fell,  rose 
pale,  mute,  mad  with  terror,  and  ran  hither  and  thither 
about  the  tower,  endeavoring  to  find  an  exit.  At  last  he 
saw  through  a  narrow  window  the  sparkle  of  a  star  on  the 
black  vault  of  heaven,  and  with  the  strength  of  terror  he 
climbed  to  the  opening,  giving  no  heed  to  the  fate  of  his 
accomplice,  and  plunged  head  foremost  into  the  lake. 

The  immersion  into  cold  water  calmed  the  blood  which 
was  rushing  violently  to  his  brain,  and  he  recovered  his 
self-control.  He  came  to  the  surface  of  the  water,  where 
he  kept  himself  b}'  swimming.  Then  he  looked  about  him 
to  see  in  which  direction  he  had  better  turn,  and  his  eyes 
lighted  on  a  boat  moored  at  the  breach  in  the  wall  through 
which  the  waters  of  the  lake  had  forced  their  way  into  the 
tower.  Shuddering,  he  swam  for  it,  making  as  little  noise 
as  he  could,  climbed  in,  seized  the  oars,  and  was  five  hun- 
dred feet  away  from  the  shore  before  he  even  thought  of 
his  companion. 

"Eue  du  Marche',  No.  22,"  he  cried.  "No,  terror 
has  n't  made  me  forget  it.     Success  depends  now  on  the 


364  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

rapidity  with  which  I  get  to  Nantes.  Poor  Courtin  !  —  I 
may  now  consider  myself  heir  to  the  last  fifty  thousand 
francs  ;  but  what  a  fool  I  was  to  give  him  the  first  !  I 
might  at  this  very  moment  have  had  the  address  and  the 
money  both.     What  a  blunder  !  what  a  blunder  !  " 

Then,  to  stifle  his  remorse,  the  Jew  bent  to  his  oars  and 
made  the  boat  spin  across  the  lake  with  a  vigor  which 
seemed  quite  incompatible  with  his  weakly  appearance. 


AN  EYE  FOR  AN  EYE.  365 


XXXVII. 

AN  EYE  FOR  AN  EYE,  AND  A  TOOTH  FOR  A  TOOTH. 

In  order  to  follow  Monsieur  Hyacinthe  for  a  moment  we 
were  obliged  to  leave  our  older  acquaintance,  Courtin, 
stretched  on  the  ground,  legs  and  arms  tied,  in  thickest 
darkness,  between  the  two  wounded  bandits. 

The  sound  of  Maître  Jacques'  heavy  breathing  and 
Joseph's  moans  terrified  him  as  much  as  their  threats  had 
done.  He  trembled  lest  one  or  the  other  might  revive  and 
remember  he  was  here,  and  execute  summary  vengeance  on 
him;  he  held  his  breath,  lest  even  its  tremor  might  recall 
him  to  their  minds. 

And  yet,  another  feeling  was  even  more  powerful  in 
him  than  the  love  of  life.  He  was  resolved  to  keep  to  the 
very  last  moment  the  precious  belt  from  those  who  might 
be  his  murderers,  and  he  continued  to  hug  it  to  his  breast, 
even  daring,  in  order  to  hide  it,  that  which  he  would  not 
have  dared  to  save  his  life  ;  he  gently  suffered  the  belt  to 
slip  to  the  ground  beside  him,  and  then  with  an  almost 
imperceptible  motion  he  crept  in  the  same  direction  until 
he  had  covered  it  with  his  body. 

Just  as  he  had  managed  to  execute  this  difficult  manœuvre 
he  heard  the  door  of  the  tower  rolling  and  creaking  on  its 
rusty  hinges,  and  he  saw  a  sort  of  phantom  clothed  in 
black  advancing  toward  him,  holding  a  torch  in  one  hand, 
and  dragging  with  the  other  a  heavy  musket,  the  butt-end 
of  which  resounded  on  the  stones. 

Though  the  shades  of  death  were  already  darkening  his 
eyes,  Joseph  Picaut  saw  the  apparition;  for  he  cried  out, 
in  a  voice  broken  with  agony  :  — 


36G  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"The  widow  !  the  widow  !  " 

The  widow  of  Pascal  Picaut,  for  it  was  she,  walked 
slowly  forward,  without  a  glance  at  Courtin  or  Maître 
Jacques,  who,  pressing  his  left  hand  on  a  wound  in  his 
breast,  was  striving  to  rise  upon  his  right;  then  she  stopped 
in  front  of  her  brother-in-law  and  gazed  at  him  with  an 
eye  that  was  still  threatening. 

"  A  priest  !  a  priest  !  "  cried  the  dying  man,  horrified  by 
that  awful  phantom,  which  roused  a  hitherto  unknown 
feeling  in  his  breast,  —  that  of  remorse. 

"  A  priest  !  What  good  will  a  priest  do  you,  miserable 
man?  Can  he  bring  back  to  life  your  brother  whom  you 
murdered  ?  " 

"No,  no  !  "  cried  Joseph;  "no,  I  did  not  murder  Pascal. 
I  swear  it  by  eternity,  to  which  I  am  now  going  !  " 

"  You  did  not  kill  him,  but  you  let  others  do  so,  —  if, 
indeed,  you  did  not  urge  them  to  the  crime.  Not  content 
with  that,  you  fired  at  me.  You  would  have  been  twice  a 
fratricide  in  one  day  if  the  hand  of  a  brave  man  had  not 
pushed  aside  your  weapon.  P>ut  be  sure  of  this  :  it  is  not 
the  harm  you  tried  to  do  to  me  that  I  am  avenging.  It  is 
the  hand  of  G-od  that  strikes  you  through  me  —  Cain  !" 

"What  !  "  exclaimed  Joseph  Picaut  and  Maître  Jacques, 
"that  shot  —  " 

"I  fired  it;  I  knew  I  should  surprise  you  here  in  the 
commission  of  another  crime,  and  it  was  I  who  shot  you 
in  the  act.  Yes,  Joseph,  yes  ;  you  so  brave,  you  so  proud 
of  your  strength,  bow  down  before  God's  judgment  ! — you 
die  by  a  woman's  hand." 

"  What  matters  it  to  me  how  I  die  ?  Death  comes  from 
God.  I  implore  you,  woman,  give  my  repentance  chance 
for  efficacy;  let  me  be  reconciled  to  the  Heaven  I  have 
offended;  bring  me  a  priest,   I  implore  you  !  " 

"  Did  your  brother  have  a  priest  in  his  last  hour  ?  Did 
you  give  him,  you,  the  time  to  lift  his  soul  to  God  when 
he  fell  beneath  the  blows  of  your  accomplices  at  the  ford 
of  the  Boulogne  ?    No,  an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a 


AN   EYE   FOR   AN    EYE.  367 

tooth!  Die  a  violent  death  ;  die  without  help  temporal  or 
spiritual,  as  your  brother  died.  And  may  all  brigands," 
she  added,  turning  to  Maître  Jacques,  "all  brigands  who, 
in  the  name  of  any  flag,  no  matter  which  it  is,  bring  ruin 
to  their  country  and  mourning  to  their  homes,  descend 
with  you  to  the  lowest  hell  !  " 

"Woman!"  cried  Maître  Jacques,  who  had  succeeded  in 
raising  himself,  "whatever  be  his  crime,  whatever  he  may 
have  done  to  you,  it  is  not  good  that  you  should  speak  to 
him  thus.  Forgive  him,  that  you  may  yourself  be  for- 
given !  " 

"I  ?"  said  the  widow.  " Who  dares  to  raise  a  voice 
against  me  ?  " 

"The  man  whom,  without  intending  it,  you  have  sent  to 
his  grave;  he  who  received  the  ball  you  meant  for  your 
brother-in-law  ;  the  man  who  speaks  to  you,  I  —  I  whom 
you  have  killed.  And  yet  I  am  not  angry  with  you;  for, 
by  the  way  the  world  wags  now,  the  best  thing  men  of 
heart  can  do  is  to  go  and  see  if  that  three-colored  rag 
which  seems  to  be  to  the  fore  here  waves  in  God's  heaven." 

Marianne  gave  a  cry  of  astonish  aient,  almost  of  horror, 
when  she  heard  what  Maître  Jacques  told  her.  As  the 
reader  has  doubtless  understood,  she  had  watched  for  the 
arrival  of  Courtin  ;  then  when  he  and  his  companion  had 
entered  the  tower  she  went  up  the  old  staircase  and  along 
the  outer  gallery  till  she  reached  the  platform  of  the  tower; 
thence,  through  the  rafters  of  the  roof,  she  had  fired  on  her 
brother-in-law. 

We  have  seen  how,  in  consequence  of  the  movement, 
made  by  Maître  Jacques  to  save  Courtin,  he  was  the  one  to 
receive  the  shot. 

This  miscarriage  of  her  hatred  had,  as  we  have  said, 
bewildered  the  widow;  but  quickly  recovering  herself  as 
she  remembered  what  bandits  these  men  really  were,  she 
said  :  — 

"Even  if  that  is  true,  if  I  did  shoot  one  intending  to 
shoot  the  other,    my  shot  struek  you  as  you   were   both 


368  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

about  to  commit  another  crime.  I  have  saved  the  life  of 
an  innocent  man." 

A  savage  smile  curled  the  pale  lips  of  Maître  Jacques 
on  hearing  her  last  words.  He  turned  toward  Courtin  and 
felt  in  his  belt  for  the  handle  of  his  second  pistol. 

"Ha  !  yes  !  "  he  said  with  a  dangerous  laugh;  "here  's 
an  innocent  man;  I  had  almost  forgotten  him.  Well,  that 
innocent,  since  you  remind  me  of  him,  I  '11  give  him  his 
brevet  as  martyr.  I  won't  die  without  accomplishing  my 
mission." 

"  You  shall  not  stain  your  last  hour  with  blood,  as  you 
have  stained  your  whole  life,  Maître  Jacques  !  "  cried  the 
widow,  placing  herself  between  Courtin  and  the  Chouan. 
"I  know  how  to  prevent  it." 

And  she  turned  the  muzzle  of  her  gun  full  on  Maître 
Jacques. 

"Very  good,"  said  Maître  Jacques,  as  if  he  resigned 
himself.  "  Presently,  if  God  allows  me  time  and  strength, 
I  will  make  you  know  the  two  scoundrels  whom  you  call 
innocent;  but,  for  the  time  being,  I  will  let  this  one  live. 
In  exchange,  and  to  deserve  the  absolution  I  gave  you  just 
now,  forgive  your  poor  brother.  Don't  you  hear  the  rattle 
in  his  throat  ?  He  will  be  dead  in  ten  minutes,  and  then 
it  will  be  too  late." 

"Ko,  never  !  never  !  "  said  the  widow,  in  a  muffled  voice. 

Not  only  the  voice  but  the  rattle  in  Joseph's  throat  grew 
perceptibly  weaker,  and  yet  he  did  not  cease  to  use  his  last 
remaining  strength  in  beseeching  his  sister's  pardon. 

"  It  is  God  and  not  I  whom  you  must  implore,  "  she  said. 

"No,"  said  the  dying  man,  shaking  his  head;  "I  dare 
not  pray  to  God  so  long  as  your  curse  is  upon  me." 

"  Then  address  your  brother,  and  pray  to  him  to  forgive 
you." 

"My  brother  !"  murmured  Joseph,  closing  his  eyes  as 
if  a  terrible  spectre  were  before  him;  "my  brother  !  I 
shall  see  him  !     I  shall  be  face  to  face  with  him  !  " 

And  he  strove  to  push  away  with  his  hand  the  bloody 


AN    EYE    FOR    AX    EYE.  369 

phantom  which  seemed  to  beckon  to  him.  Then,  in  a 
voice  that  was  hardly  intelligible,  and  was  indeed  scarcely 
more  than  a  whisper,  — 

"Brother  !  brother  !  "  he  murmured,  "why  do  you  turn 
away  your  head  when  I  pray  to  you  ?  In  the  name  of  our 
mother,  Pascal,  let  me  clasp  your  knees.  Remember  the 
tears  we  shed  together  in  our  childhood,  which  the  first 
Blues  made  so  bitter.  Forgive  me  for  having  followed  the 
terrible  path  our  father  enjoined  on  both  of  us.  Alas  ! 
alas  !  how  could  I  know  it  would  bring  you  and  me  face  to 
face  as  enemies  ?  My  God  !  my  God  !  he  does  not  answer 
me  !  Oh,  Pascal,  why  do  you  turn  away  your  head  ?  Oh  ! 
my  poor  child,  my  little  Louis,  whom  I  shall  never  see 
again,"  continued  the  Chouan,  "pray  to  your  uncle,  pray 
to  him  for  me  !  He  loved  you  as  his  own  child;  ask  him, 
in  the  name  of  your  dying  father,  to  help  a  repentant  sin- 
ner to  reach  the  throne  of  God  !  Ah,  brother  !  brother  !  " 
he  murmured,  with  a  sudden  expression  of  joy  that  bor- 
dered on  ecstasy,  "you  hear  him,  you  pardon  me,  you 
stretch  your  hand  to  the  child.  My  God  !  my  God  !  take 
my  soul  now,  for  my  brother  has  forgiven  me  !  " 

He  fell  back  upon  the  ground  from  which,  by  a  mighty 
effort,  he  had  risen  to  stretch  his  arms  toward  the  vision. 

During  this  time,  and  gradually,  the  hatred  and  ven- 
geance in  the  widow's  face  subsided.  When  Joseph  spoke 
of  the  little  boy  whom  Pascal  loved  as  his  own  child,  a 
tear  forced  its  way  from  her  eyelids;  and  when  at  last,  by 
the  gleam  of  her  torch,  she  saw  the  face  of  the  dying  man 
illuminated,  not  with  an  earthly  light,  but  by  a  sacred  halo, 
she  fell  upon  her  knees,  and  pressing  the  hand  of  her 
wounded  brother,  she  cried  out:  — 

"  I  believe  you,  I  believe  you,  Joseph  !  God  unseals  the 
eyes  of  the  dying  and  lets  them  see  into  the  heights  of 
heaven.  If  Pascal  pardons  you,  I  pardon  you.  As  he  for- 
gets, so  I  forget.  Yes,  I  forget  all  to  remember  one  thing 
only,  —  that  you  were  his  brother.  Brother  of  Pascal,  die 
in  peace  !  " 

vol.  ii.  —  24 


370  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Thank  you,  thank  you,"  stammered  Joseph,  whose 
voice  now  hissed  through  his  lips,  which  were  stained 
with  a  bloody  froth.  "  Thank  you  !  but  —  the  wife,  the 
children?" 

"  Your  wife  shall  be  my  sister,  and  your  children  are  my 
children,"  said  the  widow,  solemnly.  "Die  in  peace, 
Joseph!" 

The  hand  of  the  Chouan  went  to  his  forehead  as  though 
he  meant  to  make  the  sign  of  the  cross  ;  his  lips  murmured 
a  few  words,  doubtless  not  said  for  human  ears,  for  no  one 
understood  them.  Then  he  opened  his  eyes  unnaturally 
wide,  stretched  out  his  arm,  and  gave  a  sigh;  it  was  his 
last. 

"  Amen  !  "  said  Maître  Jacques. 

The  widow  knelt  down  and  prayed  beside  the  body  for 
some  instants,  —  quite  amazed  that  her  eyes  should  be  filled 
with  tears  for  him  who  had  made  her  weep  so  bitterly. 

A  long  silence  followed.  Ko  doubt  this  silence  oppressed 
Maître  Jacques,  for  he  suddenly  called  out  :  — • 

"  Sacredié  !  who  would  suppose  there  was  one  living 
Christian  still  here  ?  I  say  one,  for  I  don't  call  Judas  a 
Christian." 

The  widow  quivered;  beside  the  dead  she  had  indeed 
forgotten  the  dying. 

"I  '11  go  back  to  the  house  and  send  help,"  she  said. 

"Help?  Don't  do  anything  of  the  kind;  they'd  only 
cure  me  for  the  guillotine;  and,  thank  you,  la  Picaut,  I  'd 
rather  die  the  death  of  a  soldier.  I  've  got  it,  and  I  won't 
let  go  of  it  now." 

"Do  you  suppose  I  'd  give  you  up  to  the  authorities  ?" 

"Yes;  for  you  are  a  Blue  and  the  wife  of  a  Blue.  Damn 
it  !  the  capture  of  Maître  Jacques  would  make  a  fine  figure 
on  your  record-book." 

"My  husband  was  a  patriot,  and  I  shared  his  feelings, 
that  is  true.  But  I  have  a  horror,  above  all  things,  of 
traitors  and  treachery.  For  all  the  gold  in  the  world  I 
would  not  betray  a  person,  not  even  you." 


AN    EYE   FOR   AN    EYE.  371 

"  You  say  you  have  a  horror  of  treachery.  Do  you  hear 
that,  you  cur?  " 

"Come,  Jacques,  let  me  semi  help,"  said  the  widow. 

"No,"  said  the  Chouan  bandit,  "  I  'm  at  the  end  of  my 
tether;  I  feel  it  and  I  know  it.  I  've  made  too  many  such 
holes  not  to  know  all  about  it.  In  two  hours,  or  three  at 
most,  I  shall  be  disporting  myself  on  the  great  open 
moor,  —  the  last,  grand,  beautiful  moor  of  the  good  God. 
But  listen  to  me  now." 

"I  am  listening." 

"This  man  whom  you  see  here,"  he  continued,  pushing 
Courtin  with  his  foot  as  he  might  a  noxious  animal,  "this 
man,  for  a  few  gold  coins,  has  sold  a  head  which  ought  to 
be  sacred  to  all,  not  only  because  it  is  of  those  who  are 
destined  to  wear  a  crown,  but  because  her  heart  is  noble 
and  kind  and  generous." 

"That  head,"  replied  the  widow,  "I  have  sheltered  be- 
neath my  roof." 

In  the  portrait  Maître  Jacques  had  drawn  she  recognized 
the  duchess. 

"Yes,  you  saved  her  that  time,  la  Picaut,  I  know  it;  and 
it  is  that  which  makes  you  so  great  in  my  eyes;  it  is  that 
which  leads  me  to  make  you  my  last  request." 

"Tell  me  what  it  is." 

"Come  nearer  and  stoop  down;  you  alone  must  know 
what  I  have  to  say." 

The  widow  went  close  to  Maître  Jacques  and  leaned  over 
him  and  listened  attentively. 

"You  must,"  he  said  in  a  very  low  voice,  "tell  all  this 
to  the  man  you  have  in  your  bouse." 

"  Who  is  that  ?  "  asked  the  widow,  thunderstruck. 

"The  man  you  are  hiding  in  your  stable;  the  one  you  go 
every  night  to  nurse  and  comfort." 

"  But  who  told  you  ?  " 

"Pooh  !  do  you  think  anything  can  be  hidden  from 
Maître  Jacques?  All  I  say  is  true,  la  Picaut,  and  it  makes 
Maître  Jacques  the  Chouan,  Maître  Jacques  the  Chauffeur, 
proud  to  be  among  your  friends." 


372  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 

"But  the  gars  is  a  very  sick  man;  he  has  hardly  strength 
to  stand,  and  then  only  by  leaning  on  the  wall." 

"He  '11  find  strength,  never  fear;  he  's  a  man,  — a  man 
indeed  such  as  there  '11  be  no  more  of  after  we  have  gone," 
said  the  Vendéan,  with  savage  pride;  "and  if  he  can't 
take  the  field  himself  he  '11  make  others  do  so.  Tell  him 
merely  that  he  must  warn  Nantes  instantly,  without  losing 
a  minute,  a  second;  he  must  warn  he  knows  who.  That 
other  man  who  was  here  is  already  on  the  march  while  we 
are  talking." 

"It  shall  be  done,  Maître  Jacques." 

"  Ah  !  if  that  rascal  Joseph  had  only  spoken  sooner  !  " 
resumed  Maître  Jacques,  raising  his  body  to  stop  the  blood 
which  was  rushing  violently  to  his  chest.  "  He  knew,  I  am 
certain,  what  was  plotting  between  these  two  villains;  but 
he  had  them  in  his  power  and  he  never  thought  to  die. 
Well!  man  proposes,  and  God  disposes.  It  must  have  been 
the  booty  that  tempted  him.  By  the  bye,  widow,  you 
ought  to  be  able  to  find  that  booty  somewhere." 

"  What  must  I  do  with  it  ?  " 

"Divide  it  in  two  parts;  give  one  to  the  orphans  this 
war  has  made,  white  as  well  as  blue  ;  that 's  my  share. 
The  other  belongs  to  Joseph;  give  that  to  his  children." 

Courtin  gave  a  sigh  of  anguish;  for  the  words  were 
spoken  loud  enough  for  him  to  hear. 

"  No,  "  said  the  widow,  "  no,  it  is  the  money  of  Judas  ; 
it  would  bring  evil.  I  will  not  take  that  money  for  those 
poor  children,   innocent  as  they  are." 

"  You  are  right  ;  then  give  it  all  to  the  poor.  The  hands 
that  receive  alms  cleanse  everything,  even  crime." 

"And  he  ?"  said  the  widow,  motioning  toward  Courtin 
but  not  looking  at  him,  "  what  is  to  be  done  with  him  ?  " 

"  He  's  well  bound  and  gagged,  is  n't  he  ?  " 

"He  seems  to  be." 

"Well,  leave  it  to  the  man  you  have  at  your  house  to 
say  what  shall  be  done  with  him." 

"So  be  it." 


AN   EYE   FOR   AN   EYE.  373 

"By  the  bye,  la  Picaut,  when  you  go  for  him,  give  him 
this  roll  of  tobacco.  I  have  no  further  use  for  it,  and  I 
think  it  will  please  him  mightily.  I  declare,  though," 
continued  the  master  of  warrens,  "  it  makes  me  half  sorry 
to  die.  Ha  !  I  'd  give  my  twenty-five  thousand  francs 
prize-money  to  see  the  meeting  of  our  man  and  this  one; 
droll  enough,  that  will  be  !  " 

"But  you  must  not  stay  here,"  said  Marianne  Picaut. 
"We  have  a  little  bedroom  in  the  citadel,  where  I  will  carry 
you.     There,  at  any  rate,  you  can  see  a  priest." 

"As  you  please,  widow;  but  first,  do  me  the  kindness  to 
make  sure  that  my  scoundrel  is  securely  bound.  It  would 
embitter  my  last  moments,  don't  you  see,  if  I  thought  he 
would  get  loose  before  the  shaking  up  he  is  going  to  have 
presently." 

The  widow  bent  over  Courtin.  The  ropes  were  so  tightly 
bound  around  his  arms  that  they  entered  the  flesh  which 
was  red  and  swollen  on  each  side  of  them.  The  farmer's 
face,  above  all,  betrayed  the  misery  he  was  enduring  and 
was  paler  than  that  of  Maître  Jacques. 

"He  can't  stir,"  said  Marianne.  "See!  Besides,  I'll 
turn  the  key  on  him." 

"Very  good;  it  won't  be  for  long.  You  will  go  at  once, 
won't  you,  la  Picaut  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  promise." 

"Thank  you.  Ah  !  the  thanks  I  give  you  are  nothing 
to  those  the  man  you  have  over  there  will  give  when  you 
tell  him  all." 

"  Well,  well  !  Now  let  me  carry  you  to  the  citadel, 
where  you  can  have  the  care  you  need.  The  confessor  and 
the  doctor  will  both  hold  their  tongues,  don't  be  afraid  of 
that." 

"Very  good;  carry  me  along.  It  will  be  queer  to  see 
Maître  Jacques  die  in  a  bed,  when  he  never,  in  all  his  life, 
slept  on  anything  but  ferns  and  heather." 

The  widow  took  him  in  her  arms  and  carried  him  to  the 
little  room  we  have  mentioned,  and  laid  him  on  a  pallet 


374  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

that  was  kept  there.  Maître  Jacques,  in  spite  of  the  suf- 
fering he  must  have  endured,  in  spite  of  the  gravity  of  his 
position,  continued,  in  the  presence  of  death,  the  same  merry 
but  sardonic  being  he  had  been  all  his  life.  The  nature  of 
this  man,  totally  unlike  that  of  his  compatriots,  never 
belied  itself  for  a  single  instant.  But,  in  the  midst  of  his 
lively  sarcasms,  flung  at  the  things  he  had  defended  quite 
as  much  as  at  those  he  had  attacked,  he  never  ceased  to 
urge  the  widow  Picaut  to  go  at  once  and  fulfil  the  errand 
to  Jean  Oullier  which  he  had  intrusted  to  her. 

Thus  urged,  Marianne  only  took  time  to  lock  the  door 
and  push  the  bolts  of  the  fruit-room  in  which  she  left 
Courtin  a  prisoner.  She  crossed  the  garden,  re-entered 
the  inn,  and  found  her  old  mother  greatly  alarmed  by  the 
noise  of  the  shots  which  had  reached  her.  Her  daughter's 
absence  increased  the  old  woman's  fears,  and  she  was 
beginning  to  be  terribly  alarmed  lest  the  widow  had  been 
made  the  victim  of  some  trap  by  her  brother-in-law,  when 
Marianne  returned. 

The  widow,  without  telling  her  mother  a  word  of  what 
had  happened,  begged  her  not  to  let  any  one  pass  into  the 
ruins;  then,  flinging  her  mantle  over  her  shoulders,  she 
prepared  to  go  out.  Just  as  she  laid  her  hand  on  the  latch 
of  the  door  a  light  knock  was  given  without.  Marianne 
turned  back  to  her  mother. 

"Mother,"  she  said,  "if  any  stranger  asks  to  pass  the 
night  at  the  inn  say  we  have  no  room.  No  one  must  enter 
the  house  this  night;  the  hand  of  God  is  upon  it." 

The  person  outside  rapped  again. 

"  Who  's  there  ?  "  said  the  widow,  opening  the  door,  but 
barring  the  way  with  her  own  person. 

Bertha  appeared  on  the  threshold. 

"  You  sent  me  word  this  morning,  madame,"  said  the 
young  girl,  "that  you  had  an  important  communication  to 
make  to  me." 

"You  are  right,"  said  the  widow.  "I  had  wholly 
forgotten  it." 


AN   EYE   FOR   AN    EYE.  375 

"Good  God!"  cried  Bertha,  noticing  that  Marianne's 
kerchief  was  stained  with  blood,  "has  any  harm  happened 
to  my  people,  —  to  Mary,  my  father,  Michel?  " 

And  in  spite  of  her  strength  of  mind,  this  last  thought 
shook  her  so  terribly  that  she  leaned  against  the  wall  to 
keep  herself  from  falling. 

"Don't  be  uneasy,"  answered  the  widow.  "I  have  no 
misfortune  to  tell  you;  on  the  contrary,  I  am  to  say  that 
an  old  friend  whom  you  thought  lost  is  living,  and  wants 
to  see  you." 

"Jean  Oullier  !  "  cried  Bertha,  instantly  guessing  whom 
she  meant,  "  Jean  Oullier  !  It  is  he  whom  you  mean,  is  n't 
it  ?  He  is  living  ?  Oh,  God  be  thanked  !  my  father  will 
be  so  glad  !  Take  me  to  him  at  once,  —  at  once,  I  entreat 
you  !  " 

"It  was  my  intention  to  do  so  this  morning;  but  since 
then  events  have  happened  which  lay  upon  you  a  duty 
more  pressing  still." 

"A  duty  !  "  exclaimed  Bertha,  astonished.  "What 
duty  ?  " 

"That  of  going  to  Nantes  immediately;  for  I  doubt  if 
poor  Jean  Oullier,  exhausted  as  he  is,  can  possibly  do  what 
Maître  Jacques  requests  of  him." 

"  What  am  I  to  do  in  Nantes  ?  " 

"  Tell  him,  or  her,  whom  3^011  call  Petit-Pierre  that  the 
secret  of  her  present  hiding-place  has  been  sold  and  bought, 
and  she  must  leave  it  instantly.  Any  place  is  safer  than 
the  one  she  is  now  in.  Betrayal  is  close  upon  her;  God 
grant  you  may  get  there  in  time  !  " 

"Betrayed  !  "  cried  Bertha,  "betrayed  by  whom?  " 

"By  the  man  who  once  before  sent  the  soldiers  to  my 
house  to  capture  her,  —  by  Courtin,  the  mayor  of  La 
Logerie." 

"  Courtin  !     Have  you  seen  him  ?  " 

"Yes,"  replied  Marianne,  laconically. 

"  Oh  !  "  cried  Bertha,  clasping  her  hands,  "  let  me  see 
him  !  " 


376  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Young  girl,  young  girl,"  said  the  widow,  evading  a 
reply  to  this  request,  "  it  is  I,  whom  the  partisans  of  that 
woman  have  made  a  widow,  who  urge  you  to  make  haste 
and  save  her;  and  it  is  you,  who  boast  of  being  faithful  to 
her,  who  hesitate  to  go  !  " 

"No,  no;  that  is  not  so  !"  cried  Bertha.  "I  do  not 
hesitate;    I  am  going." 

She  made  a  motion  to  go  out;  the  widow  stopped  her. 

"You  cannot  go  to  Nantes  on  foot;  you  would  get  there 
too  late.  In  the  stable  of  this  house  you  will  find  two 
horses;  take  either  you  please,  and  tell  the  hostler  to  saddle 
him." 

"Oh,"  said  Bertha,  "I  can  saddle  him  myself.  But 
what  can  we  ever  do  for  you,  my  poor  widow,  who  have 
twice  saved  her  life  ?  " 

"Tell  her  to  remember  what  I  said  to  her  in  my  cottage 
beside  the  bodies  of  two  men  killed  for  her  sake;  tell 
her  that  it  is  a  crime  to  bring  discord  and  civil  war  into 
a  region  where  her  enemies  themselves  protect  her  from 
treachery.  Go,  mademoiselle,  go  !  and  may  God  guide 
you." 

So  saying,  the  widow  left  the  house  hurriedly,  —  going 
first  to  the  rector  of  Saint-Philbert,  whom  she  asked  to 
visit  the  citadel,  and  then,  as  rapidly  as  possible,  she  struck 
across  the  fields  to  her  own  house. 


TUE   KED-BKEECHES.  377 


XXXVIII. 

THE    RED-BREECHES. 

For  the  last  twenty-four  hours  Bertha's  anxiety  had  been 
extreme.  It  was  not  only  on  Courtin  that  her  suspicions 
fell;  they  extended  to  Michel  himself. 

Her  recollections  of  that  evening  preceding  the  fight  at 
Chêne,  the  apparition  of  a  man  at  her  sister's  window,  had 
never  entirely  left  Bertha's  mind;  from  time  to  time  they 
crossed  it  like  a  flash  of  flame,  leaving  behind  them  a  pain- 
ful furrow,  which  the  passive  attitude  taken  toward  her 
by  Michel  during  his  convalescence  was  far  from  soothing. 
But  when  she  learned  that  Courtin,  whom  she  supposed  to 
have  acted  under  Michel's  directions,  had  ordered  the 
schooner  to  sail,  and  when,  above  all,  she  returned, 
frightened  and  breathless  with  love,  to  the  farmhouse  at 
La  Logerie,  and  did  not  find  him  whom  she  came  to  seek, 
then  indeed  her  jealous  suspicions  became  intense. 

Nevertheless,  she  forgot  all  to  obey  the  duty  laid  upon 
her  by  the  widow;  before  that  duty  all  considerations  must 
give  way,  even  those  of  her  love.  She  ran  to  the  stable 
without  losing  another  moment;  chose  the  horse  that 
seemed  to  her  most  fit  to  do  the  distance  rapidly;  gave 
him  a  double  feed  of  oats  to  put  into  his  legs  the  elasticity 
they  needed;  threw  upon  his  back,  as  he  ate,  the  sort  of 
pack-saddle  used  in  those  regions;  and,  bridle  in  hand, 
waited  until  the  animal  had  finished  eating. 

As  she  stood  there  waiting,  a  sound,  well-known  in  those 
days,  reached  her  ears.  It  was  that  of  the  regular  tramp 
of  a  troop  of  armed  men.  At  the  same  moment  a  loud 
knocking  was  heard  on  the  inn  door. 


378  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Through  a  glazed  sash,  which  looked  into  a  bake-house 
that  opened  into  the  kitchen,  the  young  girl  saw  the 
soldiers,  and  discovered  at  the  first  words  they  said  that 
they  wanted  a  guide.  At  that  moment  everything  was 
significant  to  Bertha;  she  trembled  for  her  father,  for 
Michel,  for  Petit-Pierre.  She  therefore  would  not  start 
until  she  had  found  out  what  these  men  were  after.  Con- 
fident of  not  being  recognized  in  the  peasant-woman's  dress 
she  wore,  she  passed  through  the  bake-house  and  entered 
the  kitchen.  A  lieutenant  was  in  command  of  the  little 
squad. 

"  Do  you  mean,"  he  was  saying  to  Mère  Chompré,  "that 
there  's  not  a  man  in  the  house,  —  not  one  ?  " 

"No,  monsieur;  my  daughter  is  a  widow;  and  the  only 
hostler  we  have  is  out  somewhere,  but  I  don't  know 
where." 

"Well,  your  daughter  is  the  person  I  want.  If  she  were 
here  she  would  serve  us  as  guide,  as  she  did  at  the  Springs 
of  Baugé  one  famous  night;  or,  if  she  couldn't  come  her- 
self, she  might  tell  us  of  some  one  to  take  her  place.  I 
know  I  could  trust  her;  but  these  miserable  peasants,  half 
Chouans,  whom  we  compel  to  guide  us  against  their  will, 
never  leave  us  an  easy  moment." 

"Mistress  Picaut  is  absent;  but  perhaps  we  can  supply 
some  one  in  her  place,"  said  Bertha,  advancing  resolutely. 
"Are  you  going  far,  gentlemen  ?  " 

"  Bless  my  soul  !  a  pretty  girl  !  "  said  the  young  officer, 
approaching  her.  "  Guide  me  where  you  will,  my  beauty, 
and  the  devil  take  me  if  I  don't  follow  you  !  " 

Bertha  lowered  her  eyes  and  twisted  the  corner  of  her 
apron  like  a  bashful  village-girl,  as  she  answered:  — 

"If  it  is  n't  very  far  from  here,  and  the  mistress  is  will- 
ing, I  '11  go  with  you  myself.     I  know  the  neighborhood." 

"  Agreed  !  "  cried  the  lieutenant. 

"But  on  one  condition,"  continued  Bertha,  —  "that  some 
one  shall  bring  me  back  here.  I  am  afraid  to  be  out  in 
the  roads  alone." 


THE   RED-BREECHES.  379 

"God  forbid  I  should  yield  that  privilege  to  any  one, 
my  dear,  even  if  it  costs  me  my  epaulets  !  "  said  the  officer. 
"  Do  you  know  the  way  to  Banlœuvre  ?  " 

At  the  name  of  the  farmhouse  belonging  to  Michel, 
where  she  had  lived  herself  for  some  days  with  the  mar- 
quis and  Petit-Pierre,  Bertha  felt  a  shudder  run  through 
her  body,  a  cold  sweat  came  upon  her  forehead,  her  heart 
beat  violently,  but  she  managed  to  master  her  emotion. 

"Banlœuvre?"  she  repeated.  "No,  that's  not  in  our 
parts.     Is  it  a  village  or  a  château,  Banlœuvre  ?  " 

"It  is  a  farmhouse." 

"  A  farmhouse  !     Whom  does  it  belong  to  ?  " 

"To  a  gentleman  of  your  neighborhood." 

"Are  you  billeted  at  Banlœuvre?  " 

"No;  we  have  an  expedition  there." 

"What  is  an  expedition?  " 

"Well  done  !  "  cried  the  lieutenant.  "Here  's  a  pretty 
girl  who  wants  information  !  " 

"Natural  enough,  too.  If  I  take  you,  or  get  some  one 
to  take  you  to  Banlœuvre,  of  course  I  want  to  know  why 
you  are  going  there." 

"We  are  going,"  said  the  sub-lieutenant,  joining  in  the 
conversation  for  the  sake  of  showing  his  wit,  "to  give  a 
white  such  a  dose  of  lead  that  he  '11  turn  blue." 

"Ah  !  "  cried  Bertha,  unable  to  repress  the  exclamation. 

"Hey  !  what's  the  matter  Avith  you  ?"  asked  the  lieu- 
tenant. "If  we  had  told  you  the  name  of  the  man  we  are 
going  to  arrest,  I  should  have  said  you  were  in  love  with 
him." 

"I  ?"  said  Bertha,  calling  up  her  strength  of  mind  to  hide 
the  terror  in  her  heart.     "I,  in  love  with  a  gentleman  ?" 

"Kings  have  married  shepherdesses,"  said  the  sub- 
lieutenant, who  seemed  to  be  of  a  comic  humor. 

"Well,  well  !  "  cried  the  lieutenant;  "here  's  the  shep- 
herdess fainting  away  like  a  fine  lady." 

"I  ?  fainting  !  "  exclaimed  Bertha,  endeavoring  to  laugh. 
"  Nonsense,  we  don't  have  city  manners  here  !  " 


380  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Nevertheless,  you  are  as  pale  as  your  linen,  my  pretty 
girl." 

"  Goodness  !  you  talk  of  shooting  a  man  as  you  would  a 
rabbit  in  a  hedge  !  " 

"Not  at  all  the  same  thing,"  said  the  sub-lieutenant; 
"for  a  rabbit  is  good  to  eat,  whereas  a  dead  Chouan  is  good 
for  nothing." 

Bertha  could  not  prevent  her  proud,  energetic  face  from 
betraying,  by  its  expression,  the  disgust  she  felt  at  the 
jokes  of  the  young  officer. 

"Ah,  ça!"  said  the  lieutenant,  "you  are  not  as  patriotic 
as  your  mistress.    I  see  we  sha'n't  get  much  help  from  you." 

"I  am  patriotic;  but  much  as  I  hate  my  enemies,  I  can't 
see  them  killed  with  a  dry  eye." 

"Pooh  !  "  said  the  officer,  "you  '11  get  accustomed  to  it, 
just  as  we  soldiers  get  accustomed  to  sleeping  on  the  high- 
roads instead  of  our  beds.  To-night,  when  the  letter  of 
that  cursed  peasant  came  to  the  guard-house  at  Saint- 
Martin,  and  obliged  me  to  start  off  at  once,  I  damned  the 
State  to  all  the  devils.  Well,  I  now  see  I  was  wrong,  for 
it  has  its  compensations,  —  in  fact ,  instead  of  cursing  and 
swearing,  I  find  the  expedition  charming." 

So  saying,  and  as  if  to  add  to  the  pleasures  of  the  situa- 
tion, he  stooped  and  tried  to  snatch  a  kiss  from  the  neck 
of  the  young  girl.  Bertha,  who  did  not  suspect  his  amor- 
ous intention,  felt  the  young  man's  breath  upon  her  face 
and  started  away,  red  as  a  pomegranate,  her  nostrils 
quivering,  her  eyes  sparkling  with  indignation. 

"Oh,  oh  !  "  continued  the  lieutenant,  "you  are  not  going 
to  get  angry  for  a  silly  kiss,  are  you,  my  beaut}^  ?  " 

"Do  you  think,  because  I  am  a  poor  country-girl,  that 
I  can  be  insulted  with  impunity  ?  " 

"  '  Insulted  with  impunity  '  !  hey,  what  fine  language  !  " 
said  the  sub-lieutenant  ;  "  and  they  told  us  we  were  coming 
to  a  land  of  savages." 

"Do  you  know,"  said  the  lieutenant,  looking  fixedly  at 
Bertha,  "that  I  've  a  great  mind  to  do  something." 


THE    RED-BREECHES.  381 

"Do  what  ?'" 

"  Arrest  you  on  suspicion,  and  not  let  you  off  till  you 
pay  me  the  ransom  I  would  set  upon  your  liberty." 

"  What  would  that  be  ?  " 

"A  kiss." 

"I  can't  let  you  kiss  me,  because  you  are  neither  my 
father,  nor  brother,  nor  husband." 

"Are  they  the  only  ones  who  will  have  the  right  to  put 
their  lips  to  those  pretty  cheeks  ?  " 

"Of  course  they  are." 

"Why  so?" 

"I  don't  wish  to  forget  my  duty." 

"Your  duty  !  oh,  you  little  joker  !  " 

"Don't  you  think  we  peasant-girls  have  our  duties  as 
well  as  you  soldiers  have  yours  ?  Come  "  (Bertha  tried  to 
laugh),  "  if  I  were  to  ask  you  the  name  of  the  man  you  are 
going  to  arrest,  and  it  would  be  against  your  duty  to  tell 
it,  would  you  tell  it  to  me  ?  " 

"Faith,"  said  the  young  man,  "I  should  n't  fail  much  in 
duty  if  I  did  tell  you;  for  there  is  n't,  I  think,  the  slight- 
est harm  in  your  knowing  it." 

"  But  suppose  there  were  any  harm  ?  " 

"Oh,  then  —  but  I  declare  I  don't  know;  your  eyes  have 
turned  my  head,  and  I  really  can't  say  what  I  should  do. 
Well,  yes,  if  you  are  really  as  curious  as  I  am  weak,  I  '11 
tell  you  that  name  and  betray  the  country;  only,  I  must 
be  paid  for  it  with  a  kiss." 

Bertha's  apprehensions  were  so  great,  —  she  was  so  con- 
vinced that  Michel  was  the  object  of  the  expedition,  — that 
she  forgot,  with  her  usual  impetuosity,  all  caution,  and 
without  reflecting  on  the  suspicions  she  gave  rise  to  by  her 
persistency,  she  abruptly  offered  him  her  cheek.  He  took 
two  resounding  kisses. 

"Give  and  take,"  he  said,  laughing.  "The  name  of  the 
man  we  are  going  to  arrest  is  Monsieur  de  Vincé." 

Bertha  drew  back  and  looked  at  the  officer.  A  misgiv- 
ing crossed  her  mind  that  he  had  tricked  her. 


382  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

"  Come,  let 's  start,  "  said  the  lieutenant  to  his  subordi- 
nate. "I  shall  go  and  ask  the  mayor  for  the  guide  we 
evidently  can't  get  here."  Turning  to  Bertha  he  added, 
"Any  guide  he  may  give  me  won't  please  me  as  you  do, 
my  dear,"  and  he  gave  an  affected  sigh.  Then  he  called  to 
his  men  :  "  Forward  there,  march  !  " 

Before  starting  himself  he  asked  for  a  match  to  light  his 
cigar.  Bertha  searched  in  vain  on  the  mantel-piece. 
The  officer  then  took  a  paper  from  his  pocket  and  lighted 
it  at  the  lamp.  Bertha  watched  his  movements  and  threw 
a  glance  at  the  paper,  which  the  flames  were  beginning  to 
shrivel  up,  and  she  distinctly  saw  there  Michel's  name. 

"I  suspected  it,"  thought  she.  "He  lied  tome.  Yes, 
yes,  it  is  Michel  they  are  going  to  arrest." 

As  the  officer  threw  down  the  half -burned  paper,  she  put 
her  foot  upon  it  with  some  difficulty,  and  the  officer  took 
advantage  of  her  motions  to  seize  another  kiss. 

"Hush  !  "  he  said,  putting  his  finger  on  his  lip;  "you 
are  not  a  peasant-girl.  Look  out  for  yourself,  if  you  have 
any  reason  for  hiding.  If  you  play  your  part  as  badly 
with  those  who  are  seeking  you  as  you  have  with  me,  who 
am  not  instructed  to  arrest  you,  you  are  lost." 

So  saying,  he  hastily  turned  away,  fearing  perhaps  to  be 
lost  himself.  He  was  no  sooner  out  of  sight  than  Bertha 
seized  the  remains  of  the  paper.  It  contained  the  denun- 
ciation that  Courtin  had  sent  to  Nantes  by  the  peasant 
Matthieu,  which  the  latter,  to  save  himself  trouble,  had 
put  into  the  first  post-office  he  came  to.  This  post-office 
was  that  of  Saint-Martin,  the  next  village  to  Saint- 
Philbert. 

Enough  remained  unburned  of  Courtin's  writing  to 
enlighten  Bertha  as  to  the  object  of  the  troop  now  advanc- 
ing on  Banlœuvre.  Her  head  swam.  If  the  sentence 
already  pronounced  on  the  young  man  were  executed  by 
the  soldiers,  Michel  would  be  dead  in  two  hours  ;  she  saw 
him,  a  bloody  corpse,  reddening  the  earth  about  him.  Her 
mind  gave  way. 


THE    RED-BREECHES.  383 

"Where  is  Jean  Oullier  ?  "  she  cried  to  the  old  landlady. 

"Jean  Oullier  ?"  said  the  latter,  gazing  stolidly  at  the 
girl.     "I  don't  know  what  you  mean." 

"  I  ask  you,  where  is  Jean  Oullier  ?  " 

"Is  n't  Jean  Oullier  dead  ?"  replied  Mère  Chompré. 

"But  your  daughter,  where  has  your  daughter  gone  ?" 

"l 'ni  sure  I  don't  know;  she  never  tells  me  where  she 
is  going  when  she  goes  out.  She  is  old  enough  to  be  the 
mistress  of  her  own  actions." 

Bertha  thought  of  the  Picaut  cottage;  but  to  go  there 
would  take  her  an  hour,  and  it  might  prove  a  waste  of 
time.     That  hour  would  suffice  to  insure  Michel's  death. 

"She  will  be  back  in  a  minute,"  she  said  to  the  old 
woman.  "  When  she  comes  tell  her  I  could  not  go  as  soon 
as  she  expected  to  the  place  she  knows  of;  but  I  will  be 
there  before  daylight." 

Running'  to  the  stables,  she  slipped  the  bridle  on  the 
horse,  sprang  upon  his  back,  rode  him  out  of  the  building, 
and  giving  him  a  vigorous  blow  with  a  switch,  put  him  at 
once  into  a  gait  that  was  neither  trot  nor  gallop,  but  fast 
enough  to  gain  half  an  hour  at  least  on  the  soldiers.  As 
she  crossed  the  market-place  of  Saint-Philbert  she  heard 
on  her  right  the  receding  footsteps  of  the  little  troop. 

Then  she  took  her  bearings,  passed  the  houses,  dashed 
her  horse  into  the  river  Boulogne,  and  came  out  to  join  the 
road  a  little  above  the  forest  of  Machecoul. 


384  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 


XXXIX. 


A    WOUNDED    SOUL. 


Fortunately  for  Bertha  the  horse  she  was  riding  had 
better  qualities  than  his  appearance  denoted.  He  was  a 
little  Breton  beast  which,  when  quiet,  seemed  gloomy, 
sad,  depressed,  like  the  men  of  his  native  region;  but  once 
warmed  to  action  (like  them  again)  he  increased  every 
moment  in  vigor  and  energy.  With  flaring  nostrils,  and 
his  tangled  mane  floating  in  the  wind,  he  attained  to  a 
gallop;  presently  his  gallop  became  a  run.  Plains,  val- 
leys, and  hedges  passed  and  disappeared  behind  him  with 
fantastic  rapidity,  while  Bertha,  bending  low  upon  his 
neck,  gave  rein  and  urged  him  onward  with  voice  and 
whip. 

The  belated  peasants  whom  she  met,  seeing  the  horse 
and  its  rider  fade  into  the  distance  as  quickly  as  they  had 
seen  them  appear,  took  them  for  phantoms,  and  signed 
themselves  devoutly  behind  them. 

Rapid  as  this  going  was,  it  was  not  as  fast  as  Bertha's 
heart  demanded  ;  to  her  a  second  seemed  a  week,  a  minute 
a  year.  She  felt  the  terrible  responsibility  that  rested  on 
her,  —  the  responsibility  of  blood  and  death  and  shame. 
Could  she  save  Michel,  and,  having  saved  him,  should  she 
still  have  time  to  avert  the  clanger  that  threatened  Petit- 
Pierre?     That  was  the  question. 

A  thousand  confused  ideas  coursed  through  her  brain; 
she  blamed  herself  for  not  having  given  Marianne's  mother 
more  careful  instructions;  she  was  seized  with  vertigo  at 
the  thought  that  after  the  headlong  rush  of  that  mad  ride, 


A   WOUNDED   SOUL.  385 

the  poor  little  Breton  horse  would  surety  be  unable  to  return 
from  Banloeuvre  to  Nantes;  Bhe  reproached  herself  for 
using  in  the  interests  of  her  love  the  time  and  resources 
"which  might  be  necessary  to  save  the  noblest  head  in 
France;  then  she  reflected  that  unless  others  possessed,  as 
she  did,  the  passwords,  it  would  be  impossible  fur  any  one 
to  reach  the  illustrious  fugitive.  So  thinking,  and  torn 
by  a  thousand  conflicting  emotions,  culminating  in  a  sort 
of  intoxication  or  madness,  she  pressed  her  horse  with  her 
heel  and  continued  her  wild  ride,  which,  at  any  rate,  cooled 
her  brain,  burning  with  thoughts  that  were  like  to  burst  it. 

At  the  end  of  an  hour  she  reached  the  forest  of  Touvois. 
There  she  was  compelled  to  slacken  speed;  the  way  was 
full  of  quagmires.  Twice  the  little  horse  plunged  into 
them.  She  was  forced  to  let  him  walk,  calculating  that  in 
any  case  she  had  gained  sufficiently  on  the  soldiers  to  give 
Michel  time  to  escape. 

She  hoped;  she  breathed.  A  moment  of  joyful  satis- 
faction came  to  quench  the  all-consuming  anguish  of  her 
fears;  once  more  Michel  would  owe  to  her  his  life  ! 

We  must  have  loved,  we  must  have  known  the  ineffable 
joy  of  sacrifice,  to  comprehend  what  there  was  of  happiness 
in  this  immolation  of  herself  to  the  man  she  loved,  and 
the  proud  joy  with  which  Bertha  thought  for  an  instanl 
that  Michel's  life,  which  she  was  now  about  to  save,  might 
cost  her  dear. 

Her  mind  was  full  of  these  thoughts  when  she  saw  the 
white  walls  of  the  farmhouse  shining  in  the  moonlight, 
framed  by  the  dark  tufts  of  the  nut-trees.  The  gate  of  the 
farmyard  was  open.  Bertha  dismounted,  fastened  her 
horse  to  a  ring  in  the  outer  wall,  and  crossed  the  yard  on 
foot. 

The  manure  which  covered  the  ground  deadened  the 
sound  of  her  steps  ;  no  dog  barked  to  welcome  her,  or  to 
signify  her  presence  to  the  inmates.  To  her  great  surprise 
Bertha  noticed  a  horse  standing,  saddled  and  bridled,  by 
the  door  of  the  house.     The  horse  might  belong  to  Michel; 

vol.  II.  —  25 


386  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

but  then  again  it  might  belong  to  a  stranger.     Bertha  was 
determined  to  make  sure  before  entering  the  house. 

One  of  the  shutters  in  the  room  where  Petit-Pierre  had 
asked  her  hand  of  her  father  in  Michel's  name  stood  open. 
Bertha  went  softly  up  to  it  and  looked  within. 

Hardly  had  her  eyes  rested  on  the  interior  of  the  room 
when  she  gave  a  stifled  cry  and  almost  fainted.  She  had 
seen  Michel  at  Mary's  knees;  one  hand  was  round  her 
sister's  waist,  and  the  latter's  hand  was  toying  with  his 
hair;  their  lips  were  smiling  to  each  other;  their  eyes 
shone  with  that  expression  of  joy  which  can  never  be  mis- 
taken by  hearts  that  have  loved. 

The  prostration  caused  by  this  discovery  lasted  but  a 
second.  Bertha  rushed  to  the  door  of  the  room,  pushed  it 
open  violently,  and  appeared  on  the  threshold  like  an 
embodiment  of  Vengeance,  her  hair  dishevelled,  her  eyes 
flaming,  her  face  livid,  her  breast  heaving. 

Mary  gave  a  cry  and  fell  on  her  knees  with  her  face  in 
her  hands.  She  had  guessed  the  whole  at  a  single  glance, 
so  frightfully  convulsed  was  Bertha's  face. 

Michel,  horrified  by  Bertha's  look,  rose  hastily,  and,  as 
though  he  found  himself  suddenly  in  presence  of  an  enemy, 
he  mechanically  put  his  hand  on  his  arms. 

"Strike  !"  cried  Bertha,  who  saw  his  action;  "strike, 
miserable  man  !  It  will  be  a  fit  conclusion  to  your  baseness 
and  your  treachery  !  " 

"Bertha,"  stammered  Michel,  "let  me  tell  you,  let  me 
explain  to  you  !  " 

"To  your  knees!  to  your  knees  !  —  you  and  your  accom- 
plice !  "  cried  Bertha.  "  Say  on  your  knees  the  lies  you 
will  invent  for  your  defence  !  Oh,  the  vile  wretch  !  And  I 
have  flown  here  to  save  his  life  !  I,  half  mad  with  terror 
and  despair  for  the  fate  that  was  hanging  over  him;  I, 
who  have  forgotten  all,  all,  honor,  duty;  I,  who  laid  my 
life  at  his  feet,  who  had  but  one  thought,  one  object,  one 
desire,  one  wish,  — that  of  saying  to  him,  'Michel,  look  ! 
see  how  I  love  you  !  '  —  I  come,  and  T  find  him  betraying 


A   WOUNDED    SOUL.  387 

his  word,  denying  his  promises,  faithless  to  sacred  ties  — 
I  will  nut  say  of  love,  but  of  gratitude  —  and  with  whom  ? 
for  whom  ?  The  being  I  loved  next  to  him  in  this  world, 
the  companion  of  my  childhood,  —  my  sister  !  Was  there 
no  other  woman  to  seduce  ?  Speak!  speak,  wretch!  "  went 
on  Bertha,  seizing  the  young  man's  arm  and  shaking  it  with 
violence.  "  Or  did  you  wish,  in  deserting  me,  to  take  away 
mv  only  consolation,  —  the  heart  of  that  second  self  1 
called  a  sister  '.'  " 

"  Bertha,  listen  to  me  !  "  said  Michel.  "  Listen  to  me, 
I  implore  you  !  We  are  not,  thank  God,  as  guilty  as  you 
think  us.     Oh,  if  you  did  but  know,  Bertha  !  " 

"I  will  hear  nothing;  I  listen  only  to  my  heart,  which 
grief  is  breaking,  which  despair  has  crushed;  I  listen  only 
to  the  voice  within  me  which  says  you  are  a  coward  !  base  ! 
My  God  !  my  God  !  "  she  cried,  grasping  her  hair  in  her 
clenched  hands,  "  my  God  !  is  this  the  reward  of  my  ten- 
derness, which  was  so  blind  that  my  eyes  refused  to  see, 
my  ears  to  hear  when  they  told  me  that  this  child,  this 
timid,  trembling,  wavering,  unmanly  creature,  was  not 
worthy  of  my  love  ?  Oh,  poor  fool  that  I  have  been  !  I 
hoped  that  gratitude  would  bind  him  to  her  who  took  pity 
on  his  weakness,  who  braved  all  prejudice  and  public 
opinion  to  drag  him  from  the  bog  of  infamy  and  make  his 
name,  his  degraded  name,  an  honorable  and  honored  one  !  " 

"Ah!"  cried  Michel,  rising,  "enough  !  enough  !" 

"Yes,  enough  of  a  degraded  name  !"  repeated  Bertha. 
"That  touches  you,  does  it?  So  much  the  better;  I  will 
say  it  again  and  again.  Yes,  a  name  soiled  and  degraded 
by  all  that  is  most  odious,  cowardly,  infamous,  —  by 
treachery  !  Oh,  family  of  betrayers  !  The  son  continues 
in  the  way  of  the  father;  I  ought  to  have  expected  it." 

"Mademoiselle,  mademoiselle  !  "  said  Michel,  "you 
abuse  the  privilege  of  your  sex  in  thus  insulting  me;  and 
not  only  me,  but  all  that  a  man  holds  most  sacred,  —  the 
memory  of  his  father  !  " 

"  Sex  !  sex  !     So  I  have  a  sex  now,  have  I  ?    I  had  none 


3S8  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

when  you  were  betraying  me  at  the  feet  of  that  poor  fool, 
none  when  you  were  making  me  the  most  miserable  of 
creatures;  but  now,  because  I  do  not  lament  and  tear  my 
hair  and  beat  my  breast  and  drag  myself  to  your  feet,  now, 
now  you  suddenly  discover  I  am  a  woman,  a  being  to  be 
respected  because  she  is  gentle,  to  whom  suffering  must  be 
spared  because  she  is  weak  !  No,  no  !  for  you  I  have  no 
longer  a  sex.  You  have  before  you,  from  this  hour,  a 
being  whom  you  have  mortally  offended,  and  who  returns 
you  insult  for  insult.  Baron  de  la  Logerie,  coward  and 
traitor  double-dyed  is  he  who  seduces  the  sister  of  his 
betrothed  wife,  —  yes,  I  was  the  affianced  wife  of  that 
man  !  Baron  de  la  Logerie,  not  only  are  you  a  traitor  and 
a  coward,  but  you  are  the  son  of  a  traitor  and  a  coward  ; 
your  father  was  the  infamous  wretch  who  sold  and  betrayed 
Charette.  He,  at  least,  paid  the  penalty  of  his  crime, 
which  he  expiated  with  his  life.  You  have  been  told  that 
he  was  killed  in  hunting,  —  a  benevolent  lie,  which  I  here 
refute.  He  was  killed  by  one  who  saw  him  do  his  deed 
of  treachery  ;  he  was  killed  by  —  " 

"Sister!"  cried  Mary,  springing  forward  and  laying 
her  hand  on  her  sister's  lips,  "you  are  about  to  commit  the 
crime  you  denounce  in  others;  you  are  betraying  secrets 
which  do  not  belong  to  you  !  " 

"  Be  it  so  ;  but  that  man  shall  speak  !  The  contempt  I 
cast  upon  him  shall  make  him  raise  his  head  !  He  shall 
find,  in  his  shame  or  in  his  pride,  the  strength  to  send  me 
out  of  a  life  that  is  odious  to  me,  a  life  which  can  be 
henceforth  but  a  long  delirium,  an  eternal  despair.  Let 
him  complete  with  one  blow  the  ruin  he  has  begun  !  My 
God  !  my  God  !  "  continued  Bertha,  in  whose  eyes  the 
tears  were  beginning  to  force  their  way,  "  why  dost  thou 
suff er  men  to  break  the  hearts  of  thy  living  creatures  ?  My 
God  !  my  God  !  what  can  ever  console  me  for  this  ?" 

"I  will,"  said  Mary.  "I  will,  my  sister,  my  good  sister, 
my  precious  sister,  if  you  will  but  hear  me,  if  you  will 
only  pardon  me." 


A   WOUNDED   SOUL.  389 

"Pardon  you  !  you  ?"  cried  Bertha,  pushing  Mary  away 
from  her.  "No!  you  are  the  partner  of  that  man;  I  know 
you  no  more  !  But,  I  warn  you,  watch  each  other  mutu- 
ally, for  your  treachery  will  bring  evil  on  both  of  you." 

"Bertha!  Bertha!  in  God's  name,  do  not  say  such 
things  !     Do  not  curse  us,  do  not  insult  us  thus  !  " 

"  Ha  !  "  exclaimed  Bertha,  "  you  feel  it,  do  you  ?  Yes, 
it  is  not  without  good  reason  that  we  are  called  'she- 
wolves  '  !  And  now  they'll  say:  'The  Demoiselles  de 
Souday  both  loved  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie,  and  after  prom- 
ising to  marry  '  (for  I  suppose  he  promised  it  to  you  as  he 
did  to  me)  '  he  deserted  them  and  took  a  third  !  '  Why, 
even  for  wolves  it  would  be  monstrous  !  " 

"Bertha  !  Bertha!" 

"If  I  scorned  the  epithet  they  gave  us,  as  I  scorn  all 
empty  considerations  of  mock  propriety,"  continued  the 
young  girl,  still  at  the  height  of  her  excitement,  "if  I 
laughed  at  the  conventions  of  society  and  the  world,  it  was 
because  we  both  —  both ,  do  you  hear  that  ?  —  because  we 
both  had-  the  right  to  walk  proudly  in  a  virtuous  indepen- 
dence of  unsullied  honor;  because  we  were  so  high  in  our 
inward  consciousness  that  such  miserable  insults  were 
beneath  our  notice.  But  to-day  all  that  is  changed,  and  I 
here  declare  that  I  will  do  for  you,  Mary,  what  I  disdain 
to  do  for  myself,  —  if  that  man  will  not  marry  you,  I  will 
kill  him.  It  will  at  least  save  our  father's  name  from 
dishonor." 

"That  name  is  not  dishonored;  I  swear  it,  Bertha!" 
cried  Mary,  kneeling  down  before  her  sister,  who,  shaken 
at  last  beyond  her  strength ,  fell  into  a  chair  and  clasped 
her  head  in  her  hands. 

"So  much  the  better;  it  is  one  pain  the  less  for  her 
whom  you  will  never  see  again."  Then,  twisting  her  arms 
with  a  gesture  of  despair,  "My  God  !  my  God  !  "  she  cried, 
"after  having  loved  them  so  well,  to  be  forced  to  hate 
them  !  " 

"  No,  you  shall  not  hate  me,  Bertha  !     Your  tears,  your 


390  THE   LAST  VENDÉE. 

sufferings  are  worse  to  me  than  your  anger.  Forgive  me  ! 
Oh,  my  God  !  what  am  I  saying  ?  You  will  think  me 
guilty  if  I  clasp  your  knees  and  ask  your  pardon.  I  am 
not  guilty,  I  swear  it.  I  will  tell  you  — but  oh  !  you  must 
not  suffer,  you  must  not  weep  !  Monsieur  de  la  Logerie," 
continued  Mary,  turning  to  Michel  a  face  that  was  bathed 
in  tears,  "Monsieur  de  la  Logerie,  all  that  has  happened 
is  a  dream;  the  daylight  has  come.  Go!  go  far  away; 
forget  me!     Go  at  once!" 

"Mary,"  said  Bertha,  who  had  suffered  her  sister  to  take 
her  hand,  which  the  latter  covered  with  tears  and  kisses, 
"you  do  not  reflect;  it  is  too  late;  it  is  impossible." 

"Yes,  yes,  it  is  possible,  Bertha!"  said  Mary,  with  a 
heart-rending  smile.  "Bertha,  we  will  each  take  a  spouse 
whose  name  will  protect  us  from  "  the  calumnies  of  the 
world." 

"  Whom  do  you  mean,  poor  child  ?  " 

Mary  raised  her  hand  to  heaven. 

"  God  !  "  she  said. 

Bertha  did  not  answer;  grief  was  choking  her;  but  she 
held  Mary  tightly  clasped  against  her  breast,  while  Michel, 
utterly  overcome,  fell  on  a  bench  in  a  corner  of  the  room. 

"Forgive  us  !  "  murmured  Mary,  in  her  sister's  ear. 
"Do  not  crush  him  !  Is  it  his  fault  if  a  mistaken  educa- 
tion has  made  him  so  irresolute  and  timid  that  he  had  no 
courage  to  speak  when  it  was  his  duty  to  do  so  ?  He  has 
long  wished  to  tell  you  the  truth,  but  I  have  withheld  him. 
I  alone  am  to  blame,  I  hoped  we  should  forget  each  other. 
Alas,  alas  !  God  has  made  us  very  feeble  against  our  own 
hearts  !  But  now,  we  will  never  leave  each  other,  you  and 
I,  dear  sister.  Look  at  me  !  let  me  kiss  your  eyes  !  ISTo 
one  shall  ever  come  between  us  !  no  man  shall  bring  trouble 
and  discord  between  two  sisters.  No,  no  !  we  will  live 
alone  together,  loving  each  other,  —  alone  with  ourselves 
and  God,  to  whom  we  will  consecrate  our  lives;  and  there 
will  still  be  happiness,  my  Bertha,  happiness  in  our  soli- 
tude, for  we  can  pray  for  him,  we  can  pray  for  him  !  " 


A   WOUNDED   JSOUL.  391 

Mary  uttered  the  last  words  in  a  heart-rending  tone. 
Michel,  convulsed  with  anguish,  came  and  knelt  beside 
her  before  Bertha,  who,  with  her  mind  bent  on  her  sister, 
did  not  notice  him. 

At  this  moment  the  soldiers  appeared  at  the  door  which 
Bertha  had  left  open,  and  the  officer  we  have  seen  at  the 
inn  of  Saint-Philbert  advanced  into  the  middle  of  the  room 
and  laid  his  hand  on  Michel's  shoulder. 

"  You  are  Monsieur  Michel  de  la  Logerie  ?  "  he  said. 

"Yes,  monsieur." 

"Then  I  arrest  you,  in  the  name  of  the  law." 

"Great  God  !  "  cried  Bertha,  recovering  her  senses.  "I 
had  forgotten  it!  Ah,  it  is  1  who  have  killed  him!  And 
the  other!  down  there!  down  there!  Oh,  what  is  hap- 
pening there  ? " 

"  Michel,  Michel  !  "  said  Mary,  forgetting  what  she  had 
just  said  to  her  sister.  "Michel,  if  you  die,  I  will  die 
with  you." 

"No,  no,"  cried  Bertha,  "he  shall  not  die;  I  swear  to 
you,  sister,  you  shall  still  be  happy!  Make  way,  mon- 
sieur, make  way  !  "  she  said  to  the  officer. 

"Mademoiselle,"  replied  the  latter,  with  painful  polite- 
ness, "like  you  I  cannot  trifle  with  my  duty.  At  Saint- 
Philbert  you  were  only,  to  me,  a  suspicious  person.  I  am 
not  a  commissary  of  police,  and  I  was  not  called  upon  to 
interfere  with  you.  Here  I  find  you  in  flagrant  rebellion 
against  the  laws,  and  I  arrest  you." 

"Arrest  me!  arrest  me  at  this  moment!  You  may  kill 
me,  monsieur,  but  you  shall  not  have,  me  living!  " 

And  before  the  officer  could  recover  from  his  surprise- 
Bertha  climbed  the  window,  sprang  into  the  court-yard, 
and  reached  the  gate.  It  was  guarded  by  soldiers.  Look- 
ing about  her  the  girl  saw  Michel's  horse,  which,  frightened 
by  the  noise  and  the  apparition  of  the  soldiers,  had  broken 
loose  and  was  running  hither  and  thither  about  the  yard. 

Profiting  by  the  confidence  that  the  officer  felt  in  the 
precaution   taken   of    surround'mv   the   house,    a  security 


392  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

which  prevented  him  from  ordering  violence  against  a 
woman,  she  went  straight  to  the  animal  and  sprang  into 
the  saddle  with  a  bound,  then  passing  like  a  thunderbolt 
before  the  eyes  of  the  amazed  officer,  she  reached  a  place 
in  the  wall  which  was  slightly  broken  down;  there  with 
heel  and  bridle  she  urged  on  the  horse,  which  was  an 
excellent  English  hunter,  made  it  jump  the  barrier  which 
was  still  nearly  five  feet  high,  and  darted  away  across  the 
plain. 

"  Don't  fire  !  don't  fire  upon  that  woman  !  "  cried  the 
officer,  who  did  not  think  the  prize  worth  taking  dead  if 
he  could  not  get  her  living. 

But  the  soldiers  who  formed  the  cordon  outside  the 
court-yard  did  not  understand  the  order,  and  a  rain  of  balls 
hissed  around  Bertha  as  the  vigorous  stride  of  her  good 
English  beast  carried  her  toward  Nantes. 


THE   CHIMNEY-BACK.  393 


XL. 


THE   CHIMNEY-BACK. 


Let  us  now  see  what  was  happening  in  Nantes  during  this 
night  which  began  with  the  death  of  Joseph  Picaut,  i'ul- 
lowed  by  the  arrest  of  Monsieur  Michel  de  la  Logerie.  . 

Toward  nine  o'clock  that  evening  a  man  with  his 
clothes  soaked  in  water  and  soiled  with  mud  presented 
himself  at  the  Prefecture,  and  on  refusal  of  the  usher  in 
charge  to  take  him  to  the  prefect,  he  sent  in  to  that  official 
a  card,  bearing,  as  it  appeared,  some  all-powerful  name, 
for  the  prefect  immediately  left  his  employment  to  receive 
this  man,  who  was  no  other  than  the  one  known  to  us  as 
Monsieur  Hyacinthe. 

Ten  minutes  after  their  interview  a  strong  force  of  gen- 
darmes and  police  officers  was  on  its  way  to  the  house 
occupied  by  Maître  Pascal  in  the  rue  du  Marché,  and  soon 
appeared  before  the  door  of  the  house  which  opened  on  the 
street. 

No  precaution  was  taken  to  dull  the  sound  of  the 
column's  advance,  or  to  mislead  any  one  as  to  its  inten- 
tions; so  that  Maître  Pascal,  on  becoming  aware  of  its 
advance,  had  plenty  of  time  to  notice  that  the  door  into 
the  alley  was  not  guarded,  and  to  escape  in  that  way  before 
the  emissaries  of  the  law  could  burst  in  the  door  on  the  rue 
du  Marché,  which  was  not  opened  to  them. 

He  made  at  once  for  the  rue  du  Chateau  and  entered 
No.  3.  Monsieur  Hyacinthe,  whom  he  had  not  perceived, 
hidden  as  he  was  behind  a  stone  block  near  the  entrance 
of  the  alley,  followed  him  with  all  the  practised  skill  of  a 
hunter  stalking  the  game  he  covets. 


394  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

During  this  preliminary  operation,  for  the  success  oi 
which  Monsieur  Hyacinthe  had  probably  vouched,  the 
authorities  had  taken  strong  military  measures;  and  no 
sooner  had  the  Jew  made  his  report  of  what  he  had  seen 
to  the  prefect  of  the  Loire  than  twelve  hundred  men 
advanced  upon  the  house  into  which  the  spy  had  seen 
Maître  Pascal  disappear.  These  twelve  hundred  men  were 
divided  into  three  columns.  The  first  went  down  the 
Cours,  leaving  sentinels  stationed  along  the  walls  of  the 
Archbishop's  garden  and  the  adjoining  houses,  skirted 
the  castle  moat  and  came  in  front  of  No.  3  rue  du  Château, 
where  it  deployed.  The  second,  following  the  rue  de 
l'Evêché,  crossed  the  place  Saint-Pierre,  went  down  the 
main  street,  and  joined  the  first  column  by  the  rue  Basse- 
du-Château.  The  third  united  with  the  two  others  from 
the  upper  end  of  the  rue  du  Château,  leaving,  like  the 
others,  a  long  line  of  sentries  with  fixed  bayonets  behind  it. 

The  investment  was  complete  ;  the  whole  nest  of  houses, 
in  the  midst  of  which  was  No.  3,  was  securely  surrounded. 

The  troops  entered  the  ground-floor,  preceded  by  the 
commissaries  of  police,  who  marched  before  them,  pistol 
in  hand.  The  soldiers  spread  themselves  through  the 
house  and  guarded  all  the  exits;  their  mission  was  then 
fulfilled.     That  of  the  police  began. 

Four  ladies  were,  apparently,  the  only  occupants  of  the 
house.  These  ladies,  who  belonged  to  the  upper  aris- 
tocracy of  Nantes,  and  were  respected,  not  only  for  their 
social  position,  but  for  their  honorable  characters,  were; 
arrested. 

Outside  the  house  a  crowd  gathered,  and  formed  another 
cordon  behind  that  of  the  soldiers.  The  whole  town 
seemed  to  have  turned  into  the  streets;  but  no  sign  of 
royalist  sympathy  was  shown.  The  crowd  was  grave  and 
curious,  that  was  all. 

Investigations  began  inside  the  house;  and  their  first 
result  confirmed  the  authorities  in  the  conviction  that 
Madame   la    Duchesse   de   Berry   occupied   it.      A   letter 


THE    CHIMNEY-BACK.  395 

addressed  to  her  Royal  Highness  was  lying  open  <>n  a 
table.  The  disappearance  of  Maître  Pascal,  who  was  seen 
to  enter  the  house  and  known  not  to  have  left  it,  proved 
the  existence  of  some  hiding-place  within  it.s  walls.  That 
hiding-place  must  be  found. 

All  articles  of  furniture  were  opened  if  the  keys  were  in 
them;  broken  open  if  they  were  not.  The  sappers  and 
masons  sounded  the  walls  and  floors  with  their  hammers  ; 
builders,  who  were  taken  from  room  to  room,  declared  it 
impossible,  comparing  the  internal  with  the  external  con- 
struction, that  any  hiding-place  was  made  in  the  walls. 
In  several  of  the  rooms,  however,  articles  were  found,  such 
as  printed  papers,  jewels,  articles  of  silver,  which  might, 
to  be  sure,  have  belonged  to  the  owners  of  the  house,  but, 
under  the  circumstances,  seemed  to  point  to  the  presence 
of  the  princess  within  the  walls.  When  the  garret  was 
reached  the  builders  declared  that  there,  less  than  else- 
where, was  it  possible  for  a  hiding-place  to  exist. 

The  police  then  searched  the  neighboring  houses,  sound- 
ing the  walls  with  such  violence  that  fragments  of  masonry 
were  detached,  and  at  one  time  it  was  thought  that  the 
walls  themselves  were  coming  down. 

While  these  things  were  happening  about  them  the 
ladies  of  the  house,  who  were  under  arrest,  showed  the 
greatest  coolness;  though  kept  in  sight  by  their  guards, 
they  calmly  sat  down  to  dinner.  Two  other  women,  — 
and  history  ought,  ere  this,  to  have  searched  out  their 
names  and  preserved  them  for  posterity,  —  two  other 
women  were  the  special  objects  of  police  investigation; 
these  women,  the  servants  of  the  household,  named  Char- 
lotte Moreau  and  Marie  Boissy,  were  taken  to  the  castle, 
thence  to  the  barracks  of  the  gendarmerie,  where,  finding 
that  they  resisted  all  threats,  an  attempt  was  made  to  cor- 
rupt them.  Large  and  still  larger  sums  of  money  were 
offered  to  them,  but  they  answered  steadily  that  they  knew 
nothing  whatever  of  the  Duchesse  de  Berry. 

After  these   ineffectual  efforts  the  search   relaxed;   the 


30 u  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

prefect  was  the  first  to  retreat,  leaving,  by  way  of  precau- 
tion, a  sufficient  number  of  men  to  guard  each  room  in  the 
house,  while  the  commissaries  of  police  took  up  their 
quarters  on  the  ground-floor.  The  house  was  still  sur- 
rounded and  the  National  Guard  sent  a  detachment  to 
relieve  the  troops  of  the  line,  who  took  a  rest. 

In  distributing  sentries,  two  gendarmes  were  placed  in 
two  attic  rooms,  which  had,  of  course,  been  carefully 
searched.  The  cold  was  so  sharp  that  these  men  suffered 
from  it.  One  of  them  went  downstairs  and  returned  with 
an  armful  of  peat-fuel,  and  ten  minutes  later  a  fine  fire 
was  blazing  in  the  chimney,  the  iron  back  of  which  was 
soon  red-hot. 

Almost  at  the  same  time,  although  it  was  scarcely  day- 
light, the  work  of  the  masons  began  again;  their  crow-bars 
and  mallets  struck  the  walls  of  the  attic  rooms  and  made 
them  tremble.  In  spite  of  this  noisy  racket,  one  of  the 
gendarmes  was  fast  asleep;  his  companion,  now  comfort- 
ably warm,  had  ceased  to  keep  up  the  fire,  and  the  masons, 
satisfied  at  last,  gave  up  the  search  in  this  part  of  the 
house,  which,  with  the  instinct  of  their  trade,  they  had 
carefully  explored. 

The  gendarme  who  was  awake,  profiting  by  the  silence 
that  followed  the  diabolical  uproar  which  had  continued 
since  early  on  the  previous  evening,  went  to  sleep  himself. 
His  companion  soon  after  waked  up  cold.  His  eyes  were 
scarcely  open  before  he  thought  of  warming  himself,  and 
relighted  the  fire;  but  as  the  peat  did  not  ignite  very 
readily,  he  threw  into  the  fireplace  a  number  of  copies  of 
the  "  Quotidienne  "  which  lay  pell-mell  upon  the  table.  The 
flames  from  the  newspapers  produced  a  thicker  smoke  and 
greater  heat  than  the  peat  had  done  at  any  time.  The 
gendarme,  feeling  comfortable,  was  occupying  his  time  by 
reading  the  "Quotidienne,"  when  all  of  a  sudden  his 
pyrotechnic  edifice  came  tumbling  clown,  and  the  peat 
squares  which  he  had  set  against  the  chimney-back  rolled 
into  the  room. 


TIIK   CHIMNEY-BACK,  397 

At  the  same  instant  lie  heard  from  behind  that  back  a 
noise  which  gave  him  an  odd  idea;  he  fancied  there  were 
rats  in  the  chimney,  and  that  the  heat  of  his  fire  had  forced 
them  to  decamp.  On  this  he  woke  np  his  comrade,  and 
together  they  made  ready  to  chase  the  rodents,  sabre  in 
hand. 

While  their  attention  was  wholly  fixed  on  this  new 
species  of  game,  one  of  them  noticed  a  decided  movement 
of  the  chimney-back,  and  he  called  out  :  — 

"  Who  's  there  ?  " 

A  woman's  voice  replied:  — 

"We  surrender,  — we  will  open  the  door;  put  out  your 
fire  !  " 

The  two  gendarmes  jumped  to  their  fire  and  scattered  it 
out  with  a  few  kicks.  The  chimney-back  then  slowly 
turned  on  a  pivot  and  disclosed  a  hollow  space,  from  which 
a  woman,  bareheaded,  her  face  pale,  her  hair  standing  up 
from  her  forehead  like  that  of  a  man,  dressed  in  a  simple 
Neapolitan  gown  of  a  brown  color,  scorched  in  many 
places,  came  forth,  placing  her  feet  and  hands  on  the 
heated  hearth. 

This  woman  was  Petit-Pierre,  her  Royal  Highness 
Marie-Caroline,  the  Duchesse  de  Berry. 

Her  companions  followed  her.  For  sixteen  hours  they 
had  been  confined  in  that  cramped  place  without  food. 
The  hole  which  was  thus  their  asylum  was  made  between 
the  flue  of  the  chimney  and  the  wall  of  the  adjoining  house 
under  the  roof,  the  rafters  of  which  served  to  conceal  it. 

At  the  moment  when  the  troops  surrounded  the  house 
her  Royal  Highness  was  listening  to  Maître  Pascal,  who 
gave  her  an  amusing  account  of  the  scare  which  had  led 
him  to  leave  his  house  and  come  to  hers.  Through  the 
windows  of  the  room  in  which  she  sat  the  duchess  could 
see  the  moon  rising  in  the  calm  sky,  and  defining,  like  a 
brown  silhouette,  the  massive  towers,  the  silent,  motion- 
less towers  of  the  old  castle. 

There  are  moments  when  nature  seems  so   gentle,   so 


398  THE    LAST   VENDEE. 

friendly,  that  it  is  impossible  to  believe  a  danger  lurks  and 
threatens  us  from  the  midst  of  such  perfect  quietude. 

Suddenly  Maître  Pascal,  coming  nearer  to  the  window, 
saw  the  flash  of  bayonets.  Instantly  he  threw  himself 
back,   exclaiming  :  — 

"  Escape  !  save  yourself,  Madame  !  " 

The  duchess  at  once  rushed  up  the  staircase,  the  others 
following  her.  Reaching  the  hiding-place,  she  turned  and 
called  to  her  companions.  As  they  knew  the  place  could 
only  be  entered  on  their  hands  and  knees,  the  men  went 
first;  then,  as  the  young  lady  who  attended  on  her  Royal 
Highness  was  unwilling  to  pass  before  her,  the  duchess 
said,   laughing  :  — 

"Go  in,  go  in  !  Good  strategy  requires  that  when  a 
retreat  is  made  the  commander  should  always  be  in  the 
rear." 

The  soldiers  entered  the  door  of  the  house  just  as  that 
of  the  hiding-place  was  closed  on  the  princess  and  her 
friends. 

We  have  seen  with  what  minute  care  the  search  had 
been  made.  Every  blow  struck  on  the  walls  resounded  in 
the  refuge  of  the  duchess;  the  plaster  fell  in  showers,  the 
bricks  were  loosened,  and  the  prisoners  came  near  being 
buried  in  the  mass  of  rubbish  shaken  down  by  the  jar  of 
the  hammers  and  the  iron-bars  and  joists  of  the  searchers. 
When  the  gendarmes  built  their  fire  the  back  of  the  chim- 
ney and  the  wall  gave  forth  a  heat  which  made  the  little 
chamber  almost  insupportable.  After  a  while  those  who 
were  imprisoned  in  it  could  scarcely  breathe,  and  they 
would  have  perished  asphyxiated  if  they  had  not  succeeded 
in  getting  a  few  slates  off  the  roof,  which  made  an  opening 
that  let  in  air. 

The  duchess  suffered  the  most;  for,  having  entered  last, 
she  was  nearest  to  the  chimney-back.  Each  of  her  com- 
panions begged  her  to  change  places,  but  she  would  not 
consent  to  it.  To  the  danger  of  being  suffocated  was  now 
added  that  of  being  burned  alive.     The  door  of  the  hiding- 


TI1K   CHIMNEY-BACK. 

place  was  red-hot,  and  threatened  at  every  momenl  to  Bet 
rire  to  the  clothing  of  the  women.  In  fact,  Madame's 
gown  had  been  twice  on  fire  and  she  had  put  if,  out  with 
her  hands,  which  were  badly  burned;  the  scars  remained 
visible  for  many  months. 

Every  minute  exhausted  the  interior  air,  and  the  exter- 
nal air  admitted  through  the  tiny  holes  did  not  suffice  to 
renew  it.  The  breathing  of  the  prisoners  became  mon; 
and  more  difficult;  another  ten  minutes  in  that  furnace 
might  sacrifice  the  future  life  of  the  duchess.  Her  com- 
panions implored  her  to  surrender;  but  she  would  not. 
Her  eyes  filled  with  tears  of  anger,  which  the  scorching 
air  dried  upon  her  cheeks.  The  fire  had  again  caught  her 
gown  and  again  she  had  extinguished  it;  but  in  the  move- 
ment she  thus  made  she  chanced  to  touch  the  spring  of  the 
chimney-back,  which  moved  and  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  gendarme. 

Supposing  that  this  accident  had  betrayed  her  retreat, 
and  pitying  the  sufferings  of  her  companions,  Madame 
consented  to  surrender,  leaving  the  chimney  as  we  have 
related.  Her  first  words  were  a  request  to  see  General 
Dermoncourt.  One  of  the  gendarmes  went  to  find  him  on 
the  ground-floor,  which  he  had  not  chosen  to  leave  through- 
out the  search. 


400  THE   LAST    VENDÉE. 


XLI. 

THREE    BROKEN    HEARTS. 

As  soon  as  the  general's  arrival  was  announced,  Madame 
went  hastily  toward  him. 

"General,"  she  said  quickly,  "I  surrender  to  you;  and 
I  trust  to  your  loyalty  !  " 

"Madame,"  replied  Dermoncourt,  "your  Koyal  High- 
ness is  under  the  safeguard  of  French  honor  !  " 

He  led  her  to  a  chair,  and  as  she  seated  herself  she 
pressed  his  arm  firmly  and  said  :  — 

"General,  I  have  nothing  to  reproach  myself  with.  I 
have  done  my  duty  as  a  mother  to  recover  my  son's 
inheritance." 

Her  voice  was  clear  and  accentuated.  Though  pale,  she 
was  excited  as  if  by  fever.  The  general  sent  for  a  glass  of 
water,  in  which  she  dipped  her  fingers;  the  refreshing 
coolness  calmed  her. 

During  this  time  the  prefect  and  the  commander  of  the 
National  Guard  were  notified  of  what  had  happened.  The 
prefect  was  the  first  to  arrive.  He  entered  the  room  in 
which  Madame  was  sitting,  with  his  hat  on  his  head,  ignor- 
ing that  a  woman  was  a  prisoner  there,  —  a  woman  whose 
rank  and  whose  misfortunes  deserved  more  respect  than 
had  ever  been  shown  her. 

He  approached  the  duchess,  looked  at  her,  touched  his 
hat  cavalierly,  and  said  :  — 

"Yes,  that  is  really  she." 

Then  he  went  out  to  give  some  orders. 

"  Who  is  that  man  ?  "  asked  the  princess. 


TIIKEE    BR0KI1X    II  HAUTS.  401 

The  question  was  a  natural  one,  for  the  prefect  had  pre- 
sented himself  without  any  of  the  distinctive  signs  of  his 
high  administrative  position. 

"Madame  can  surely  guess,"  said  the  general. 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  slight  laugh. 

"I  suppose  it  must  be  the  prefect,"  she  said. 

"Madame  could  not  have  been  more  correct  had  she  seen 
his  license." 

"Did  that  man  serve  under  the  Restoration?  " 

"No,  Madame." 

"I  am  glad  for  the  Restoration." 

The  prefect  now  returned,  entering  without  being  an- 
nounced, as  before;  and,  as  before,  he  did  not  remove  his 
hat.  Apparently,  the  prefect  was  hungry  on  that  particu- 
lar morning,  for  he  brought  with  him,  on  a  plate  which  he 
held  in  his  hand,  a  slice  of  pâté.  He  put  the  plate  on  the 
table,  asked  for  a  knife  and  fork,  and  began  to  eat  with 
his  back  to  the  princess. 

Madame  looked  at  him  with  an  expression  of  mingled 
anger  and  contempt. 

"  General,  "  she  said,  "  do  you  know  what  I  most  regret 
in  the  station  I  once  occupied?  " 

"No,  Madame." 

"Two  ushers,  to  turn  that  man  out." 

When  the  prefect  had  finished  his  repast  he  turned 
round  and  asked  the  duchess  for  her  papers. 

Madame  replied  that  he  could  look  in  her  late  hiding- 
place,  where  he  would  find  a  white  portfolio  she  had  left 
there. 

The  prefect  went  to  fetch  the  portfolio  and  brought  it 
back  with  him. 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  duchess,  opening  it,  "the  papers 
in  this  portfolio  are  of  very  little  consequence;  but  I  wish 
to  give  them  to  you  myself  in  order  that  I  may  explain 
their  ownership." 

So  saying,  she  gave  him  one  after  the  other  the  things 
that  were  in  the  portfolio. 
vol.  ii.  —  26 


402  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

"  Does  Madame  know  how  much  money  she  has  here  ?  " 
asked  the  prefect. 

"Monsieur,  there  ought  to  be  about  thirty-six  thousand 
francs  ;  of  which  twelve  thousand  belong  to  persons  whom 
I  will  designate." 

The  general  here  approached  and  said  that  if  Madame 
felt  better  it  was  urgent  that  she  should  leave  the  house. 

"  To  go  where  ?  "  she  said,  looking  at  him  fixedly. 

"To  the  castle,  Madame." 

"Ah,  yes,  and  from  there  to  Blaye,  no  doubt  ?  " 

"General,"  said  one  of  Madame's  companions,  "her 
Royal  Highness  cannot  go  on  foot;  it  would  not  be  proper." 

"Monsieur,"  replied  Dermoncourt,  "a  carriage  would 
only  encumber  us.  Madame  can  go  on  foot  by  throwing 
a  mantle  over  her  shoulders  and  wearing  a  hat.  " 

On  this  the  general's  secretary  and  the  prefect,  who 
seemed  to  be  suddenly  pricked  by  gallantry,  went  down 
stairs  and  returned  with  three  hats.  The  princess  chose  a 
black  one,  because,  as  she  said,  the  color  was  analogous  to 
the  circumstances;  after  which  she  took  the  general's  arm 
to  leave  the  house.  As  she  passed  before  the  door  of  the 
garret  she  gave  a  glance  at  the  chimney-back,  which 
remained  open. 

"Ah,  general  !"  she  said,  laughing,  "if  you  had  not 
treated  me  as  they  treated  Saint  Lawrence,  — which  by 
the  bye  is  quite  unworthy  of  your  military  generosity,  — 
you  would  n't  have  me  under  your  arm,  now.  Come, 
friends,"  she  added,  addressing  her  companions. 

The  princess  went  down  the  staircase  on  the  general's 
arm.  As  she  was  about  to  cross  the  threshold  into  the 
street  she  heard  a  great  noise  among  the  crowd,  who 
flocked  behind  the  soldiers  and  formed  a  line  ten  times  as 
deep  as  that  of  the  military. 

Madame  may  have  thought  that  those  cries  and  shouts 
were  aimed  at  her;  but  she  gave  no  sign  of  fear  except 
that  she  pressed  a  little  closer  to  the  general's  arm. 

When  the  princess  advanced  between  the  double  line  of 


THREE   BROKEN    HEARTS.  4l»3 

soldiers  and  National  Guards,  who  made  a  lane  from  the 
house  to  the  castle,  the  cries  and  mutterings  she  had  heard 
became  louder  and  more  violent  than  before.     The  gene     1 

cast  his  eyes  in  the  direction  from  which  the  tumult  chieflj 
came,  and  there  he  saw  a  young  peasant-woman  trying  to 
force  her  way  through  the  ranks  of  the  soldiers  who 
opposed  her  passage;  and  yet,  being  struck  by  her  beauty 
and  the  despair  that  was  visible  on  her  face,  were  refrain- 
ing from  violence  in  repulsing  her. 

Dermoncourt  recognized  Bertha,  and  called  the  duchess's 
attention  to  her.     The  latter  gave  a  cry. 

"General,"  she  said  eagerly,  "you  have  promised  not 
to  separate  me  from  my  friends;  let  that  young  girl  come 
to  me." 

On  a  sign  from  the  general  the  ranks  opened,  and  Bertha 
reached  the  august  prisoner. 

"Pardon,  Madame  !  pardon  for  an  unhappy  woman  who 
might  have  saved  you,  and  did  not!  Oh,  I  would  I  could 
die,  cursing  that  fatal  love  which  has  made  me  the  invol- 
untary accomplice  of  the  traitors  who  have  sold  your 
Koyal  Highness  !  " 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean,  Bertha  !"  interrupt  ■'. 
the  princess,  raising  the  young  girl  and  giving  her  the  arm 
that  was  free.  "What  you  are  doing  at  this  moment 
proves  that  whatever  else  has  happened  I  cannot  doubt  a 
devotion  the  memory  of  which  will  never  leave  me.  But 
I  have  to  talk  to  you  of  other  things,  dear  child.  I  have 
to  ask  your  pardon  for  contributing  to  an  error  which  may, 
perhaps,  have  made  you  most  unhappy  ;  I  have  to  tell  you 
that  —  " 

"I  know  all,  Madame,"  said  Bertha,  lifting  her  eyes, 
that  were  red  with  tears,  to  the  princess. 

"  Poor  child  !  "  exclaimed  the  duchess,  pressing  the 
girl's  hand.  "Then,  follow  me,  come  with  me;  time  ami 
my  affection  will  calm  a  sorrow  that  I  comprehend,  that  I 
respect  —  " 

"I  beg  your   Highness  to   forgive   me  for  not  obeying 


4:04  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

lier,  but  I  have  made  a  vow  which  I  must  fulfil.  God 
alone  is  placed  by  duty  above  my  princess." 

"  Then  go,  dear  child  !  "  said  Madame,  comprehending  the 
young  girl's  meaning.  "  Go,  and  may  the  God  you  seek 
be  with  you  !  When  you  pray  to  Him  remember  Petit- 
Pierre;  the  prayers  of  a  broken  heart  ascend  to  Him."  l 

They  had  now  reached  the  gates  of  the  prison.  The 
duchess  raised  her  eyes  to  the  blackened  walls  of  the  old 
castle;  then  she  held  out  her  hand  to  Bertha,  who,  kneel- 
ing down,  laid  a  kiss  upon  it,  murmuring  once  more  the 
words,  "  Forgive  me  !  "  Then  Madame,  after  an  instant's 
hesitation,  passed  through  the  postern,  giving  a  last  smile 
in  token  of  farewell  to  Bertha. 

The  general  withdrew  his  arm  from  the  duchess  to  allow 
her  to  pass  in  ;  then  he  turned  hastily  to  Bertha  and  said 
in  a  low  voice:  — 

"  Where  is  your  father  ?  " 

"He  is  at  Nantes." 

"Tell  him  to  return  to  the  château,  and  stay  there 
quietly;  he  shall  not  be  disturbed.  I'll  break  my  sword 
sooner  than  allow  him  to  be  arrested,  my  old  enemy  !  " 

"Thank  you  for  him,  general." 

"And  you,  if  you  have  any  need  of  my  services,  com- 
mand them,  mademoiselle." 

"I  want  a  passport  to  Paris." 

"When?" 

"At  once." 

"  Where  shall  I  send  it  to  you  ?  " 

"To  the  other  side  of  the  pont  Kousseau;  to  the  inn  of 
the  Point  du  Jour." 

1  Hers  was  a  gallant  soul.  She  was  privately  married  to  an  Italian 
nobleman  of  distinguished  name  and  fame,  and  a  child  was  born  to  her 
during  her  imprisonment  at  Blaye.  The  Bourbons  never  forgave  her  ; 
they  treated  her,  and  so  did  the  French  people,  as  if  she  had  disgraced  her- 
self. Justice  has  never  been  done  to  her  brave,  generous,  gallant  heart,  — 
a  royal  heart  that  felt  for  others.  Her  second  marriage  was  a  most  happy 
one.     She  survived  her  husband  several  years,  and  died  in  1873.  —  Tk. 


THREE  BROKEN  HEARTS.  405 

"In  an  hour  you  shall  have  it,  madi  moiselle." 

With  a  sign  of  farewell  the  general  turned  and  disap- 
peared beneath  the  gloomy  portal. 

Bertha  worked  her  way  through  the  close-pressed  ranks 
of  the  crowd  until  she  reached  the  nearest  church,  which 
she  entered.  There  she  remained  a  long  time  kneeling  on 
the  cold  stone  pavement. 

When  she  rose  the  stones  were  wet  with  tears. 

Then  she  crossed  the  town  and  the  pont  Rousseau. 
Approaching  the  inn  of  the  Point  du  Jour,  she  saw  her 
father  sitting  at  the  threshold  of  the  door.  Within  the 
last  few  hours  the  Marquis  de  Souday  had  aged  ten  years  ; 
his  eye  had  lost  the  humorous,  bantering  look  which  gave 
it  such  expression;  he  carried  his  head  low,  like  a  man 
whose  burden  was  too  heavy  for  him. 

Warned  by  the  priest  who  had  received  the  last  confes- 
sion of  Maître  Jacques,  and  who  went  to  the  forest  of 
Touvois  to  tell  the  marquis  what  had  happened,  the  old 
man  started  at  once  for  Nantes.  A  mile  from  the  pont 
Rousseau  he  met  Bertha,  whose  horse  had  fallen,  having 
broken  a  tendon  in  the  furious  pace  to  which  she  had 
urged  him. 

The  girl  confessed  to  her  father  what  had  happened. 
The  old  man  did  not  reproach  her,  but  lie  broke  the  stick 
he  held  in  his  hand  against  the  stones  of  the  road. 

When  they  reached  the  pout  Rousseau  public  rumor 
informed  them,  though  it  was  onl}'  seven  in  the  morning, 
of  the  arrest  of  the  princess  before  that  arrest  was  actually 
accomplished.  Bertha,  not  daring  to  raise  her  e}*es  to  her 
father,  rushed  toward  Nantes;  the  old  man  seated  himself 
on  the  bench  before  the  inn,  where  we  rind  him  four  hours 
later. 

This  sorrow  was  the  only  one  against  which  his  selfish 
and  epicurean  philosophy  was  impotent.  He  would  have 
pardoned  his  daughter  many  faults;  but  he  could  not  think 
without  despair  that  she  had  covered  his  name  with  the 
crime  and  shame  of  lèze-chivalry,  and  that  a  Sunday,  the 


406  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

last  of  the  name,  should  have  helped  to  fling  royalty  into 
the  gulf. 

When  Bertha  approached  him  he  silently  held  out  to 
her  a  paper  a  gendarme  had  given  him.  It  was  her  pass- 
port from  the  general. 

"  Father,  will  you  not  forgive  me  as  she  forgave  me  ?  " 
said  the  girl,  in  a  gentle,  humble  tone  which  contrasted 
strangely  with  her  self-assuming  manner  in  other  days. 

The  old  gentleman  sadly  shook  his  head. 

"Where  shall  I  find  my  poor  Jean  Oullier  ?"  he  said. 
"  Since  God  has  preserved  him  to  me  I  want  to  see  him. 
I  want  him  to  go  with  me  out  of  this  country  !  " 

"  Will  you  leave  Souday,  father  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Where  will  you  go  ?  " 

"Where  I  can  hide  my  name." 

"And  Mary,  poor  Mary,  who  is  innocent!  " 

"  Mary  will  be  the  wife  of  the  man  who  is  the  cause  of 
this  execrable  crime.     I  will  never  see  Mary  again  !  " 

"You  will  be  alone." 

"No;  I  shall  have  Jean  Oullier." 

Bertha  bowed  her  head;  she  entered  the  inn,  where  she 
changed  her  peasant  dress  for  mourning  garments,  which 
she  had  bought  on  her  way  through  the  town.  When  she 
came  out  the  old  man  had  gone.  Looking  about  her  she 
saw  him,  with  his  hands  clasped  behind  his  back,  his  head 
sunk  on  his  breast,  sadly  walking  in  the  direction  of  Saint- 
Philbert. 

Bertha  sobbed;  then  she  cast  a  lingering  look  at  the 
verdant  plain  of  the  Retz  region,  which  can  be  seen  in  the 
distance  from  Nantes,  backed  by  the  dark -blue  line  of  the 
forest  of  Machecoul. 

"Farewell,  all  that  I  love  in  this  world!  "  she  cried. 

Then  she  turned  and  re-entered  the  town  of  Nantes. 


con's  executioner  407 


XLII. 

god's  executioner. 

During  the  three  hours  that  Courtin  spent  bound  hand  and 
foot,  and  lying  on  the  earth  in  the  ruins  of  Saint-Philbert, 
side  by  side  with  the  corpse  of  Joseph  Picaut,  his  heart 
passed  through  all  the  agony  that  can  rend  and  torture  a 
human  being. 

He  felt  the  precious  belt  beneath  him,  for  he  had  man- 
aged  to  lie  upon  it;  but  the  gold  it  contained  only  added 
more  pangs  to  his  other  pangs,  more  terror  to  the  countless 
terrors  which  assailed  his  brain.  That  gold,  which  was 
more  to  him  than  life  itself,  was  he  doomed  to  lose  it  ? 
Who  was  this  unknown  man  whom  he  had  heard  Maître 
Jacques  tell  the  widow  to  summon  ?  What  was  this 
mysterious  vengeance  he  had  now  to  fear?  He  passed  in 
review  before  him  all  the  persons  to  whom,  in  the  course 
of  his  life,  he  had  done  harm;  the  list  was  long,  and  their 
threatening  faces  peopled  the  darkness  of  the  tower. 

And  yet,  at  times,  a  ray  of  hope  traversed  his  gloomy 
mind;  vague  and  undecided  at  first,  it  presently  took  on 
consistency.  Could  it  be  that  a  man  possessing  that  glori- 
ous gold  should  die  ?  If  vengeance  rose  before  him  would 
not  a  handful  of  those  coins  silence  it  ?  His  imagination 
counted  and  re-counted  the  sum  belonging  to  him,  which 
was  really,  really  his  own,  which  was  bruising  his 
delightfully,  pressing  into  his  loins  as  if  the  gold  itself 
were  becoming  a  part  of  his  very  body.  Then  he  reflected 
that  if  he  could  only  escape  he  should  add  fifty  thousand 
more  francs  to  the  fifty  thousand  now  beneath  him;  and, 
helpless  as  he  was,  a  victim  doomed  to  death,  awaiting  the 


408  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

fall  of  the  sword  of  Damocles  above  his  head,  which  might 
at  any  instant  cut  the  thread  of  his  life,  his  heart  melted 
into  such  joy  that  it  took  the  character  of  intoxication. 
But  soon  his  ideas  again  changed  their  course.  He  asked 
himself  if  his  accomplice  —  in  whom  he  felt  only  the  con- 
fidence of  an  accomplice  —  would  not  profit  by  his  absence 
to  cheat  him  of  the  share  that  belonged  to  him;  he  saw 
that  man  escaping,  weighed  down  by  the  weight  of  the 
enormous  sum  he  was  carrying,  and  refusing  to  divide 
it  with  him,  who,  after  all,  had  done  the  whole  betraj'al. 
He  mentally  prepared  for  such  occasion;  he  thought  of 
words  of  entreaty  to  reach  the  heart  of  that  Jew,  threats 
to  intimidate  him,  reproaches  that  might  move  him;  but 
suddenly,  when  he  reflected  that  if  Monsieur  Hyacinthe 
loved  gold  as  he  loved  it,  — which  was  probable,  inas- 
much as  he  was  a  Jew,  —  when  he  measured  his  associate 
by  his  own  measure,  when  he  sounded  in  his  own  soul  the 
depths  of  the  sacrifice  he  demanded,  he  said  to  himself 
that  tears,  prayers,  threats,  reproaches  would  all  be  use- 
less, and  he  fell  into  paroxysms  of  rage;  he  vented  roars 
which  shook  the  old  arches  of  the  feudal  edifice;  he  strug- 
gled in  his  bonds,  he  bit  the  ropes,  he  tried  to  tear  them 
with  his  teeth  ;  but  those  ropes,  slender  and  loosely  twisted 
as  they  were,  seemed  to  take  on  life,  to  become  living 
things  under  his  efforts;  he  fancied  he  felt  them  struggling 
against  him,  increasing  their  tangled  snarl;  the  knots  he 
undid  seemed  to  tie  themselves  again,  not  singly  as  before, 
but  in  double ,  treble,  quadruple  turns  ;  and  then,  as  if  to 
punish  his  efforts,  they  buried  themselves  in  his  flesh, 
where  they  made  a  burning  furrow.  All  dreams  of  hope, 
all  thought  of  riches  and  happiness  vanished  like  clouds 
before  the  breath  of  a  tempest;  the  phantoms  of  those 
whom  the  farmer  had  persecuted  rose  terrible  before  him; 
all  things  lurking  in  the  shadow,  stones,  beams,  fragments 
of  broken  wood-work,  fallen  cornices,  all  took  form,  and 
each  of  those  threatening  shapes  looked  at  him  with  eyes 
which  shone  in  the  darkness  like  thousands  of  sparks  dart- 


god's  executioner.  409 

ing  on  the  tissue  of  a  black    shroud.     The  mind  of  the 
wretched   man   began   to   wander.     Mad   with  terror  and 

despair  he  called  to  the  corpse  of  Joseph  Picaut,  of  which 
he  could  see  the  outline,  stiff  and  stark,  about  four  feet 
from  him;  he  offered  him  a  fourth,  a  third,  a  half  of  his 
gold  if  he  would  loose  his  bonds;  but  the  echo  of  the^ 
arches  alone  replied  in  its  funereal  voice,  and,  exhausted  by 
emotion,  he  fell  back  for  a  moment  into  dull  insensibility. 

He  was  in  one  of  these  moments  of  torpor  when  a  : 
without  made  him  quiver.  Some  one  was  walking  in  the 
inner  court-yard  of  the  castle,  and  presently  he  heard  the 
grinding  of  the  rusty  bolts  of  the  old  fruit-room.  Court  i  n  's 
heart  beat  as  though  it  would  burst  his  breast.  He  was 
breathless  with  fear,  choking  with  anguish;  he  felt  that 
the  coming  person  was  the  avenger  summoned  by  Maître 
Jacques. 

The  door  opened.  The  flame  of  a  torch  lighted  the 
rafters  with  its  ruddy  glare.  Courtin  had  an  instant  of 
hope;  it  was  the  widow,  bearing  the  torch,  whom  he  first 
saw,  and  he  thought  she  was  alone;  but  she  had  scarcely 
made  two  steps  into  the  tower  before  a  man  who  was 
behind  her  appeared.  The  hair  of  the  hapless  farmer 
rose  on  his  head;  he  dared  not  look  at  the  man;  he  closed 
his  eyes  and  was  silent. 

The  man  and  the  widow  came  nearer.  Marianne  gave 
the  torch  to  her  companion,  pointing  with  her  linger  to 
Courtin;  and  then,  as  if  indifferent  to  what  was  about  to 
happen,  she  knelt  down  at  the  feet  of  Joseph  Ticaut's 
body  and  began  to  pray. 

As  for  the  man,  he  came  close  beside  the  farmer  and, 
no  doubt  to  convince  himself  that  he  was  really  the  mayor 
of  La  Logerie,  he  cast  the  light  of  the  torch  across  his 
face. 

"Can  he  be  asleep  ?"  he  said  to  himself,  in  a  low  voice. 
"Xo,  he  is  too  great  a  coward  to  sleep;  no,  his  face  is  too 
pale  —  he  's  not  sleeping." 

Then  he  stuck  his  torch   into  a  fissure  in  the   wall,  SI  t 


410  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

down  on  an  enormous  stone  which  had  rolled  from  the  top 
to  the  middle  of  the  tower  and,  addressing  Courtin,  said  to 
him  :  — 

"Come,  open  your  eyes,  Monsieur  le  maire.  We  have 
something  to  say  to  each  other,  and  I  like  to  see  the  eyes 
of  those  who  speak  to  me." 

"  Jean  Oullier  !  "  cried  Courtin,  turning  livid,  and  mak- 
ing a  desperate  effort  to  burst  his  bonds  and  escape.  "Jean 
Oullier  living!  " 

"If  it  were  only  his  ghost,  Monsieur  Courtin,  it  would 
be,  I  think,  enough  to  terrify  you;  for  you  have  a  long 
account  to  settle  with  him." 

"Oh,  my  God!  my  God!"  exclaimed  Courtin,  letting 
himself  drop  back  on  the  ground  like  a  man  who  resigns 
himself  to  his  fate. 

"  Our  hatred  dates  far  back,  does  n't  it  ?  "  continued  Jean 
Oullier;  "and  its  instincts  have  not  misled  us;  they  have 
embittered  you  against  me,  and  to-day,  exhausted  and  half 
dead  as  I  am,  they  have  brought  me  back  to  you." 

"  I  have  never  hated  you,  "  said  Courtin,  who  the  moment 
he  perceived  that  Jean  Oullier  was  not  about  to  kill  him 
on  the  spot,  felt  a  gleam  of  hope  in  his  heart  and  foresaw 
the  possibility  of  saving  his  life  by  discussion.  "I  have 
never  hated  you;  on  the  contrary!  and  if  my  ball  did 
strike  you  it  was  not  because  I  meant  it  for  you.  I  did  not 
know  you  were  in  that  bush." 

"Oh,  my  grievances  against  you  go  farther  back  than 
that,  Monsieur  Courtin  !  " 

"  Farther  back  ?  "  replied  Courtin,  who,  little  by  little, 
was  recovering  some  energy.  "But  I  swear  that  before 
that  accident,  which  I  deplore,  I  never  put  you  in  any 
danger,  I  never  did  you  any  harm." 

"Your  memory  is  short,  and  your  offences  weigh  most 
on  the  soul  of  the  offended  person,  it  appears  ;  for  I  remem- 
ber the  wrongs  you  have  done  me." 

"What  wrongs  ?  What  can  you  remember  against  me  ? 
Speak,  Monsieur  Jean  Oullier!     Do  you  think  it  right  to 


god's  executioner.  411 

kill  a  man  without  hearing  him,  without  allowing  him  to 
say  one  word  in  his  defence?" 

"Who  told  you  I  meant  to  kill  you  ?"  said  Jean  Chillier, 
with  the  icy  calmness  he  had  not  quitted  lor  an  instant. 
"Your  conscience,   perhaps." 

"Speak  out,  Monsieur  Jean!  tell  me  of  what  1  am 
accused!  Except  for  that  luckless  shot,  I  know  I  am  as 
white  as  the  driven  snow.  Yes,  1  can  prove  to  you  that 
no  one  has  been  a  better  friend  than  I  to  the  worthy  family 
at  Souday;  no  one  has  respected  them  more,  or  been  more 
glad  of  this  marriage  which  is  to  unite  the  families  of  your 
master  and  mine." 

"Monsieur  Courtin,"  said  Jean  Oullier,  who  had  left 
free  course  to  this  flux  of  words,  "  it  is,  as  you  say,  only 
fair  that  an  accused  person  should  defend  himself.  Defend 
yourself,  therefore,  if  you  can.  Listen  to  me  ;  I  begin  —  " 

"Oh,  go  on!  I  am  not  afraid  of  your  questions!'* 
replied  Courtin. 

"We  shall  soon  see  that.  Who  betrayed  me  to  the  gen- 
darmes at  the  fair  of  Montaigu,  so  as  to  lay  hands  more 
securely  on  my  master's  guests,  whom  you  rightly  sup- 
posed I  was  defending?  Who,  having  done  that,  basely 
hid  himself  behind  the  hedge  of  the  last  garden  in  Mon- 
taigu, and  after  borrowing  a  gun  of  the  owner  of  that 
garden,  fired  at  my  dog  and  killed  my  poor  companion  ? 
Answer,  Monsieur  Courtin!" 

"Who  dares  to  say  he  saw  me  do  that?"  cried  the 
farmer. 

"  Three  persons;  among  them  the  man  from  whom  you 
borrowed  the  gun." 

"How  should  1  know  the  dog  was  yoiirs  ?  No,  Mon- 
sieur Jean,  upon  my  honor,  T  was  ignorant  of  it." 

Jean  made  a  contemptuous  gesture. 

"Who,"  he  continued,  in  the  same  calm  but  accusing 
voice,  "who,  having  slipped  into  Pascal  Picaut's  house, 
sold  to  the  Blues  the  secret  he  discovered  there. — the 
secret  of  a  sacred  hospitality  ?  " 


412  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"I  bear  testimony  to  that,"  said  the  deep  voice  of 
Pascal's  widow,  issuing  from  her  silence  and  immobility. 

The  farmer  shuddered  and  dared  not  defend  himself. 

"Whom  have  I  constantly  found,"  resumed  Jean  Oullier, 
"during  the  last  four  months,  busy  with  shameful  schemes, 
laying  his  plots  and  sheltering  them  under  the  name  of  his 
young  master,  proclaiming  devotion  and  fidelity  to  him, 
and  soiling  the  very  name  of  those  virtues  by  contact  with 
his  criminal  intentions  ?  Whom  did  I  hear,  on  the  Bouaimé 
moor,  discussing  the  price  of  blood  ?  Whom  did  I  see 
weighing  the  gold  offered  him  for  the  basest  and  most 
odious  of  treacheries  ?  Who,  I  say,  was  that  man,  if  not 
you  ?  " 

"  I  swear  to  you  by  all  there  is  most  sacred  among  men  !  " 
said  Courtin,  who  still  believed  that  Jean  Oullier's  princi- 
pal grievance  was  the  shot  that  wounded  him.  "  I  swear 
to  you  that  I  did  not  know  you  were  in  that  luckless 
bus'h!" 

"But  I  tell  you  I  don't  blame  you  for  that!  I  have  not 
said  a  word,  I  have  not  opened  my  lips  to  you  about  it! 
The  list  of  your  crimes  is  long  enough  without  adding 
that!" 

"  You  speak  of  my  crimes,  Jean  Oullier,  and  you  forget 
that  my  young  master,  who  will  soon  become  yours,  owes 
me  his  life  ;  and  that  if  I  had  been  the  traitor  that  you  call 
me  I  should  have  delivered  him  up  to  the  soldiers  who 
passed  and  repassed  my  house  every  day  while  he  was 
there.  You  forget  all  that,  while,  on  the  contrary,  you 
rake  up  every  trifling  circumstance  against  me." 

"If  you  did  save  your  master,"  continued  Jean  Oullier, 
in  the  same  inexorable  tone,  "it  is  because  that  sham 
devotion  was  useful  to  your  plans.  Better  for  him,  better 
for  those  two  poor  girls,  if  you  had  let  them  end  their  days 
honorably,  gloriously,  than  to  have  mixed  them  up  in  these 
shameless  intrigues.  That  is  what  I  have  against  you, 
Courtin;  that  thought  alone  doubles  the  hatred  I  feel  to 
you." 


GOD'S   EXECUTION!  :;.  413 

•'The  proof  that  I  don't  hate  you,  Jean  Chillier,  is  that 
if  I  had  chosen  you  would  long  ago  have  been  put  out  of 
this  world." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"On  the  day  of  that  hunt  when  the  father  of  Monsieur 
Michel  was  killed  —  murdered,  .Monsieur  Jean,  we  won't 
blink  the  word  —  a  beater  was  not  ten  paces  from  him; 
and  the  name  of  that  beater  was  Courtin." 

Jean  Oullier  rose  to  his  full  height. 

"Yes,"  continued  the  farmer,  "and  this  beater  saw  it 
was  Jean  Oullier's  ball  that  brought  the  traitor  down." 

"Yes,"  said  Jean  Oullier  ;  "but  it  was  not  a  crime  it 
was  an  expiation.  I  am  proud  to  have  been  the  man  whom 
God  selected  to  punish  that  criminal." 

"God  alone  may  punish,  God  alone  may  curse,"  said  the 
mayor. 

"No,  I  am  not  mistaken;  it  is  He  who  has  put  into  my 
heart  this  hatred  of  sin,  this  ineradicable  recollection  of 
treachery;  it  was  the  finger  of  God  touching  my  heart 
when  that  heart  quivered  at  the  name  of  the  traitor.  When 
my  shot  struck  that  Judas  I  felt  the  breath  of  the  divine 
Justice  cross  my  face  and  cool  it;  and,  from  that  moment 
to  this  I  have  found  the  peace  and  calmness  I  never  had 
while  that  unpunished  criminal  prospered  before  my  eyes. 
God  was  with  me." 

"God  is  never  with  a  murderer." 

"God  is  always  with  the  executioner  who  lifts  the  sword 
of  justice.  Men  have  their  laws,  He  has  his.  I  was  that 
day,  as  I  am  to-day,  the  sword  of  God." 

"Do  you  mean  to  murder  me  as  you  murdered  Baron 
Michel  ?  " 

"  I  mean  to  punish  the  man  who  sold  Petit-Pierre  as  T 
punished  him  who  sold  Charette.  I  shall  punish  him 
without  fear,  without  doubt,  without  remorse." 

"Take  care;  remorse  will  come  when  your  future  master 
calls  you  to  account  for  his  father's  death." 

"That  young  man  is  just  and  loyal;  if  he  is  ever  called 


4i4  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

upon  to  judge  my  conduct  I  shall  tell  him  what  I 
saw  in  the  wood  of  La  Chabotière,  and  he  will  judge 
me  rightly." 

"  Who  can  testify  that  you  tell  the  truth  ?  One  man 
alone,  and  that  is  I.  Let  me  live,  Jean,  let  me  live!  and, 
as  that  woman  did  just  now,  I  will  rise  and  say:  'I  bear 
testimony  to  that.  '  " 

"Fear  makes  you  foolish,  Courtin.  Monsieur  Michel 
will  ask  for  no  other  testimony  when  Jean  Oullier  says, 
'This  is  the  truth;  '  when  Jean  Oullier,  baring  his  breast, 
says,  'If  you  wish  to  avenge  your  father,  strike!  '  when 
Jean  Oullier  kneels  before  him  and  prays  to  God  to  send 
the  expiation  if  He  himself  judges  that  the  deed  should  be 
expiated.  No,  no!  and  you  are  wrong,  wrong  to  evoke  in 
your  terror  those  bloody  memories  before  my  mind.  You, 
Maître  Courtin,  you  have  done  worse  things  than  Michel 
did;  for  the  blood  you  sold  is  nobler  still  than  that  he 
trafficked  in.  I  did  not  spare  Michel,  why  should  I  spare 
you?     Never,  never!" 

"  Pity  !  mercy  !  Jean  Oullier.  Do  not  kill  me  !  "  sobbed 
the  wretched  man. 

"Implore  those  stones,  ask  pity  of  them!  They  may 
answer  you  ;  but  nothing  can  move  my  will,  or  shake  my 
resolution.     You  shall  die!" 

"  Ah,  my  God  !  my  God  !  "  cried  Courtin,  "  is  there  no 
one  to  help  me  ?  "Widow  Picaut  !  widow  Picaut  !  here  ! 
here  !  will  you  let  him  cut  my  throat  ?  Here  !  help  me  ! 
protect  me  !  If  you  want  gold,  I  '11  give  it  !  I  have  gold, 
gold!  No,  what  am  I  saying  ?  My  mind  is  wandering; 
I  have  no  gold  !  "  said  the  poor  wretch,  fearing  to  spur  on 
the  murder  he  saw  glittering  in  the  eyes  of  his  enemy  if  he 
offered  such  hopes.  "No,  I  have  no  gold,  but  I  have  prop- 
erty, estates.  I'll  give  you  all;  I'll  make  you  rich  — 
both  of  you!  Oh,  mercy,  Jean  Oullier!  Widow  Picaut, 
defend  me  !  " 

The  widow  did  not  stir;  except  for  the  movement  of 
her  lips  she  might  have  been  taken,  as  she  knelt  there  in 


god's  executioner  415 

her  mourning  garments,  pale  as  marble,  mute  and  motion- 
less beside  the  corpse,  for  one  of  those  kneeling  statues 
we  often  see  at  the  foot  of  some  ancient  monument. 

"What!,"  continued  Courtin,  "will  you  really  kill  me? 
kill  me  without  a  fight,  without  danger,  when  1  cannol 
lift  a  foot  to  escape  or  a  hand  to  defend  myself?  Will 
you  cut  my  throat  in  my  bonds  like  a  beast  that  they  drag 
to  a  slaughter-house?  Oh,  Jean  Oullier,  that 's  not  the 
work  of  a  soldier;  you  are  a  butcher!" 

"  Who  told  you  I  would  do  it  thus  ?  No,  no,  no,  Maître 
Courtin.  Look,  the  wound  you  gave  me  has  not  healed; 
it  still  bleeds.  I  am  weak,  tottering,  feeble;  I  am  pro- 
scribed, a  price  is  on  my  head!  —  well,  in  spite  of  all  that, 
I  am  so  certain  of  the  justice  of  my  cause  that  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  appeal  to  the  judgment  of  God.  Courtin,  you 
are  free  !  " 

"Free?" 

"Yes,  I  set  you  at  liberty.  Oh,  you  need  not  thank  me; 
what  I  do,  I  do  for  myself,  not  you,  — that  it  may  never  be 
said  Jean  Oullier  struck  a  fallen  man,  an  unarmed  man. 
But  don't  mistake;  the  life  I  give  you  now,  I  will  take 
some  day." 

"Oh,  God!" 

"Maître  Courtin,  you  will  go  from  here  unbound  and 
free;  but,  I  warn  you,  beware!  As  soon  as  you  have 
passed  the  threshold  of  these  ruins  I  shall  be  upon  your 
traces  ;  and  those  traces  I  will  never  abandon  until  I  have 
struck  you  down  and  made  your  body  a  corpse.  Beware, 
Maître  Courtin,  beware  !  " 

So  saying,  Jean  Oullier  took  his  knife  and  cut  the  cords 
that  bound  the  farmer  hand  and  foot.  Courtin  made  a 
bound  of  almost  frantic  joy;  but  he  instantly  controlled  it. 
In  springing  up  he  felt  the  belt;  it  seemed  as  though  it 
called  to  him.  Jean  Oullier  had  given  him  life,  but  what 
was  life  without  his  gold? 

He  flung  himself  down  upon  it  as  quickly  as  he  had 
risen. 


116  THE  LAST   VENDÉE. 

Jean  Oullier  had  seen,  rapid  as  Courtin's  movement  was, 
the  swollen  leather  of  the  belt,  and  he  guessed  what  was 
passing  in  the  farmer's  mind. 

"  Why  don't  you  go  ?  "  he  said.  "  What  are  you  waiting 
for  ?  Yes,  I  understand  ;  you  are  afraid  that,  seeing  you 
free  as  myself  and  stronger  than  I,  my  wrath  may  revive  ; 
you  are  afraid  I  may  throw  you  another  knife  like  my  own 
and  say  to  you  :  '  Defend  yourself,  Maître  Courtin,  we  are 
equal  now  !  '  iSTo,  Jean  Oullier  has  but  one  word,  and  that 
he  has  given  you.  Make  haste!  depart!  fly!  If  God  is 
with  you,  He  will  protect  you  against  me;  if  He  condemns 
you,  what  care  I  for  the  start  I  give  you  ?  Take  your 
cursed  gold,  and  begone  !  " 

Maître  Courtin  did  not  answer.  He  rose,  stumbling  like 
a  drunken  man;  he  tried  to  fasten  the  belt  around  his 
waist,  but  could  not;  his  fingers  trembled  as  though  they 
were  shaken  by  an  ague.  Before  departing  he  kept  him- 
self turned  in  terror  toward  Jean  Oullier.  The  traitor 
feared  treachery;  he  could  not  believe  that  the  generosity 
of  his  enemy  did  not  hide  some  trap. 

Jean  Oullier  pointed  with  his  finger  to  the  door.  Courtin 
rushed  into  the  court;  but  before  he  reached  the  postern- 
gate  he  heard  the  voice  of  the  Vendéan,  sonorous  as  the 
clarion  of  battle,  calling  to  him  :  — 

"  Beware,  Courtin  !  beware  !  " 

Maître  Courtin,  free  as  he  was,  shuddered;  and  in  that 
moment  of  agitation  he  struck  his  foot  against  a  stone, 
tripped,  and  fell  forward.  He  uttered  a  cry  of  agony, 
fancying  that  the  Vendéan  was  upon  him;  he  thought 
he  felt  the  cold  steel  of  a  knife  piercing  between  his 
shoulders. 

It  was  only  an  omen.  Courtin  rose,  and  a  minute  later, 
having  passed  the  postern,  he  darted,  a  free  man,  into  the 
open  country  he  had  not  expected  to  see  again. 

When  he  had  disappeared  the  widow  went  up  to  Jean 
Oullier  and  offered  him  her  hand. 

"Jean,"  she  said,  "as  I  listened  to  you,  I  thought  how 


god's  executioner.  -417 

right  my  Pascal  was  when  he  told  me  there  were  brave, 
strong  souls  under  every  flag.'"' 

Jean  Oullier  wrung  the  hand  the  worthy  woman  who 
had  saved  his  life  held  out  to  him. 

"  How  do  you  feel  now  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Better;  we  are  always  stronger  for  a  struggle." 

"And  where  are  you  going  ?" 

"To  Nantes.  After  what  your  mother  told  us,  I  think 
Bertha  may  not  have  gone  there;  and  I  fear  some  disaster 
from  the  delay." 

"Well,  at  any  rate,  take  a  boat;  that  will  spare  your  legs 
the  fatigue  of  half  the  distance." 

"I  will,"  replied  Jean  Oullier. 

And  he  followed  the  widow  to  the  place  on  the  lakeside 
where  the  boats  of  the  fishermen  were  drawn  up  on  the 
sand. 


27 


418  THE    LAST    VENDÉE. 


XLIII. 

SHOWS    THAT    A    MAN    WITH    FIFTY   THOUSAND    FRANCS 
ABOUT   HIM    MAY    BE    MUCH   EMBARRASSED. 

As  soon  as  Maître  Courtin  had  crossed  the  bridge  leading 
from  the  castle  he  began  to  run  like  a  madman;  terror 
lent  him  wings.  He  did  not  ask  himself  whither  his  steps 
led  him  ;  he  fled  to  flee.  If  his  strength  had  equalled  his 
fear  he  would  have  put  the  world  between  himself  and 
the  threats  of  the  Vendéan,  —  threats  he  continued  to  hear 
resounding  in  his  ears  like  a  funeral  knell. 

But  after  he  had  done  about  a  couple  of  miles  across 
country  in  the  direction  of  Machecoul,  exhausted,  breath- 
less, choked  by  the  rapidity  of  his  flight,  he  fell  rather 
than  seated  himself  on  the  bank  of  a  ditch,  where  he  came 
to  his  senses  and  began  to  reflect  on  what  he  had  better  do. 
His  first  idea  was  to  go  at  once  to  his  own  house  ;  but  that 
idea  he  almost  immediately  abandoned.  In  the  country, 
no  matter  what  effort  the  authorities  might  make  to  pro- 
tect the  mayor  of  La  Logerie,  Jean  Chillier  —  with  his  rela- 
tions to  the  country-people  and  his  perfect  knowledge  of 
roads,  forests,  and  gorse  moors,  seconded  by  the  sympathy 
that  the  whole  community  felt  for  him,  and  by  the  hatred 
they  felt  for  Courtin  —  was  all-powerful,  and  the  game 
would  be  wholly  on  his  side. 

In  Nantes  alone  could  the  farmer  find  refuge,  — Nantes, 
where  an  able  and  numerous  police  would  protect  his  life 
until  such  time  as  they  could  arrest  Jean  Chillier,  —  a 
result  Courtin  hoped  to  reach  very  soon  by  the  information 
he  was  able  to  give  as  to  the  usual  hiding-places  of  the 
insurrectionists. 


FIFTY  THOUSAND  PEANCS  MAY   EMB  \  MAN. 

As  lie  sat  there  thin]  Lngs  his  hand  went  to 

his  bolt  to  lift  it;  the  weight  of  of  gold  he  carried 

hurt  him,  and  had  contributed  not  a  little  to  the  breal 
fatigue  of  his  hard  run.     That  gesture  decided  his  fate. 

Surely  he  should  find   Monsieur  Hyacinthe  in    Nante 
The  thought  of  receiving  from  his  ,  if  their  plot 

had  succeeded  (and  tins  he  did  not  doubt),  an  equal  sum 
to  that  he  carried,  filled  Courtin's  heart  with  a  joy  that  put 
him  far  above  the  tribulations  he  had  lately  undergone. 
He  did  not  hesitate  another  moment,  but  turned  at  once  in 
the  direction  of  the  town. 

He  resolved  on  getting  there  as  the  crow  flies,  across 
country.  On  the  road  he  risked  being  watched;  chance 
alone  could  put  Jean  Oullier  on  his  traces  if  he  kept  to  the 
plain.  But  his  imagination,  heated  by  the  terrible  vicis- 
situdes of  the  night,  was  more  powerful  than  his  conn, ion- 
sense.  No  matter  how  carefully  he  glided  beside  the 
hedges,  crouching  in  the  shadows  and  Stirling  the  sound  of 
his  steps,  not  daring  to  enter  any  field  until  certain  it  was 
deserted,  a  panic  fear  pursued  him  all  the  way. 

In  the  trees  with  their  pruned  heads,  which  rose  above 
the  hedges,  his  fancy  saw  assassins;  in  their  knotty 
branches  extending  above  him,  arms  and  hands  wiih 
daggers  ready  to  strike  him.  He  stopped,  chilled  with 
fear;  his  legs  refused  to  carry  him  farther,  as  though  they 
were  rooted  to  the  ground;  an  icy  sweat  burst  from  his 
body;  his  teeth  chattered  convulsively  ;  bis  shaking  fingers 
clutched  his  gold,  and  it  took  him  a  long  time  to  recover 
from  his  terror.  He  could  not  endure  to  continue  in  the 
fields,  and  made  for  the  high-road. 

Besides,  he  reflected  that  he  might  meet  a  vehicle  of 
some  kind  on  its  way  to  Nantes  and  obtain  a  seat  in  il, 
Avhich  would  shorten  the  way  aid  also  protect  him. 

After  taking  about  five  hundred  steps  he  came  out  upon 
the  road  which  follows  for  over  a  mile  the  shores  of  the 
lake  of  Grand-Lieu,  to  which  it  serves  as  a  species  of  dike. 

Courtin  stopped  every  lew  minutes  to  listen;  and   près- 


420  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

ently  he  fancied  he  hoard  the  trot  of  a  horse's  feet.  He 
flung  himself  into  the  reeds  which  bordered  the  road  on 
the  lakeside,  and  crouched  there,  again  enduring  all  the 
agonies  of  mind  which  we  have  just  described. 

But  he  now  heard  oars  to  his  left  dipping  softly  in  the 
water.  He  crept  through  the  reeds  to  look  in  the  direction 
of  the  sound,  and  saw,  in  the  shadow,  a  boat  gliding  slowly 
past  the  shore.  It  was,  no  doubt,  some  fisherman,  intend- 
ing to  gather  in  his  nets  before  daybreak. 

The  horse  came  nearer;  the  ring  of  his  hoofs  on  the 
stones  of  the  road  terrified  Courtin;  danger  was  there, 
there!  and  he  must  flee  from  it.  He  whistled  softly  to 
attract  the  attention  of  the  fisherman.  The  latter  stopped 
rowing. 

"  This  way  !  this  way  !  "  cried  Courtin. 

He  had  scarcely  said  the  words  before  a  vigorous  stroke 
of  the  oars  sent  the  boat  within  four  feet  of  the  fugitive. 

"Can  you  put  me  across  the  lake  and  take  me  as  far 
as  Port-Saint-Martin?"  asked  Courtin.  "I'll  pay  you  a 
franc  for  it." 

The  fisherman,  who  was  wrapped  in  a  sort  of  pea-jacket, 
with  a  hood  which  concealed  his  face,  answered  only  by 
a  nod;  but  he  did  better  than  reply.  Using  his  boat-hook 
he  drove  the  wherry  in  among  the  reeds,  which  bent  and 
quivered  under  its  prow;  and  just  as  the  horse  whose 
coming  had  so  terrified  Maître  Courtin  reached  the  point 
in  the  road  he  had  lately  left,  the  latter,  with  two  springs, 
gained  the  boat  and  was  safely  in  it. 

The  fisherman,  as  though  he  had  shared  his  passenger's 
apprehensions,  turned  the  boat  toward  the  middle  of  the 
lake,  while  Courtin  gave  a  sigh  of  relief.  At  the  end  of 
ten  minutes  the  road  and  the  trees  that  bordered  it  seemed 
merely  a  line  upon  the  horizon. 

Courtin  could  scarcely  contain  himself  for  joy.  The 
boat,  which  some  fortunate  chance  had  brought  to  that 
spot,  would  enable  him  to  crown  his  hopes  and  fulfil  all 
wishes.     Once  at  Port-Saint-Martin,  he  had  only  a  three- 


FIFTY  THOUSAND  FBANCS  MAY  EMBARRASS  A  MAX.      421 

mile  walk  to  Nantes  over  a  road  frequented  at  every  hour 
of  the  day  or  night;  and  once  in  Nantes  he  was  safe. 

Courtin's  joy  was  so  great  that,  in  spite  of  himself,  and 
as  an  effect  of  the  reaction  of  his  terror,  he  felt  impelled 
to  some  outward  manifestation  of  it.  Sitting  in  the  Bti  in 
of  the  boat,  he  looked  excitedly  at  the  fisherman,  as  the 
latter  bent  to  his  oars  and  put  at  every  stroke  a  stretch  of 
water  between  him  and  danger.  Those  strokes,  he  counted 
them  aloud;  then  he  laughed  a  hollow  laugh,  fingered  his 
belt,  and  made  the  gold  slip  forward  and  back  inside  it. 
This  was  not  mere  joy  —  it  was  intoxication. 

Presently,  however,  he  began  to  think  the  fisherman  had 
gone  far  enough  from  the  shoi-e,  and  that  it  was  high  time 
to  turn  the  boat's  head  to  Port-Saint-Martin,  which  they 
were  now  leaving  behind  them  on  their  right.  He  waited 
a  few  minutes,  thinking  it  might  be  a  manoeuvre  of  the 
fisherman's  to  catch  some  current  of  which  he  would  take 
advantage.  But  still  the  fisherman  rowed  on  and  on 
towards  the  middle  of  the  lake. 

" Hey,  gars, "  cried  the  farmer  at  last,  "you  can't  have 
heard  me  rightly;  you  are  making  for  Port-Saint-l'ère, 
and  T  told  you  Port-Saint-Martin.  Go  the  way  I  told 
you,  and  you'll  earn  your  money  sooner!" 

The  fisherman  was  silent. 

"Did  you  hear  me  ?  What  are  you  about  ?  "  cried  Courtin, 
impatiently.  "Port-Saint-Martin,  I  say!  Go  to  your 
right!  It  is  very  well  not  to  keep  too  near  the  shore,  ont 
of  reach  of  balls  in  these  queer  times;  but  I  wish  you  to 
go  in  that  direction  if  you  please." 

The  boatman  appeared  not  to  hear  him. 

"Ah,  ça!  are  you  deaf  ?"  exclaimed  the  farmer,  begin- 
ning to  get  angry. 

The  fisherman  replied  only  by  a  vigorous  stroke  of  his 
oars,  which  sent  the  boat  flying  several  paces  farther  out 
on  the  surface  of  the  lake. 

Courtin,  beside  himself,  sprang  to  the  bow.  knocked  off 
the  hood  which  in  the  darkness  concealed  the  fisherman's 


■422  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

head,  put  his  own  face  close  to  the  man's  face,  and  then, 
■with  a  stifled  cry,  fell  on  his  knees  at  the  bottom  of  the 
boat. 

The  man  let  go  his  oars,  but  did  not  rise. 

"God  has  spoken,  Maître  Courtin,"  he  said;  "His  judg- 
ment is  against  you!  I  was  not  seeking  you,  but  He  sends 
you  to  me;  I  had  forgotten  you  for  a  time,  and  He  puts  you 
in  my  way.     God  wills  that  you  shall  die,  Maître  Courtin." 

"jSTo,  no,  no!  you  won't  kill  me,  Jean  Oullier!  "  cried 
the  wretched  man,  falling  back  into  all  his  terrors. 

"I  will  kill  you  as  surely  as  those  stars  which  are  in  the 
sky  were  placed  there  by  God's  hand.  Therefore,  if  you 
have  a  soul,  think  of  it;  repent,  and  pray  that  your  doom 
may  not  be  too  severe." 

"Oh,  you  cannot  do  it,  you  will  not  do  it,  Jean  Oullier! 
Think  that  you  are  killing  a  child  of  the  good  God,  whose 
name  you  speak!  Oh,  not  to  tread  the  earth  again,  which 
is  so  beautiful  in  the  sunlight!  to  sleep  in  an  icy  bed 
away  forever  from  those  I  love!  Oh,  no,  no,  no!  it  is 
impossible  !  " 

"If  you  were  a  father,  if  you  had  wife,  mother,  or  sis- 
ter expecting  your  return,  your  words  might  touch  me; 
but  no!  useless  among  men,  you  have  lived  only  to  use 
them,  and  to  return  them  evil  for  good.  You  blaspheme 
even  now  in  lying,  for  you  love  no  one.  Ko  one  has  ever 
loved  you  on  this  earth,  and  my  knife  will  wound  no  heart 
but  your  own  in  killing  you.  Maître  Courtin,  you  are  now 
to  appear  before  your  Judge;  once  more,  I  say,  commend 
your  soul  to  Him." 

"Can  a  few  short  moments  suffice  for  that?  A  guilty 
man  like  me  needs  time,  needs  years  of  repentance  to  equal 
his  crimes.  You  who  are  so  pious,  Jean  Oullier,  you  will 
surely  leave  me  time  to  sorrow  for  my  sins." 

"No;  life  would  only  enable  you  to  commit  others. 
Death  is  expiation;  you  fear  it.  Put  your  fears  and  your 
anguish  at  the  feet  of  the  Lord,  and  He  will  receive  you  in 
His  mercy.     Maître  Courtin,  time  is  passing,  and  as  true  as 


FIFTY  THOUSAND  PBANCS  MAY  EMBARRASS  A  MAX.      423 

God  is  there  above  those  stars,  in  ten  minutes  you  will  be 
before  Him  !  " 

"Ten  minutes,  my  God!  ten  minutes!  Oh,  pity!  pity! 
mercy  !  " 

"The  time  you  employ  in  useless  prayers  is  lost  to  your 
soul;  think  of  that,  Maître  Courtin,  think  of  that  !  " 

Courtin  did  not  answer;  his  hand  bad  touched  an  oar, 
and  a  gleam  of  hope  came  into  his  mind.  He  gently  Beized 
it;  then  rising  abruptly,  he  aimed  a  blow  at  the  head  <d' 
the  Vendéan.  The  latter  threw  himself  to  the  right  and 
evaded  it;  the  oar  fell  on  the  forward  gunwale  and  was 
shivered  into  a  thousand  bits,  leaving  but  a  fragment  in 
the  farmer's  hand. 

Quick  as  lightning  Jean  Chillier  sprang  at  Courtin 'a 
throat.  Again  the  hapless  man  fell  on  his  knees.  Para- 
lyzed by  fear  he  rolled  to  the  bottom  of  the  boat;  his 
choking  voice  could  scarcely  murmur  the  cry  for  "Mercy! 
mercy  !  " 

"Ha,  the  fear  of  death  did  awaken  a  spark  of  courage 
in  you!  "  cried  Jean  Oullier.  "Ha,  you  found  a  weapon! 
Well,  so  much  the  better,  — so  much  the  better!  Defend 
yourself,  Courtin;  and  if  the  weapon  you  hold  in  your 
hand  does  n't  suit  you,  take  mine  !  "  continued  the  old 
keeper,  flinging  his  knife  at  the  other's  feet. 

But  Courtin  was  incapable  of  seizing  it;  all  movement 
had  become  impossible  to  him.  He  stammered  a  few 
incoherent  words;  his  whole  body  trembled  as  though  he 
was  shaken  by  an  ague;  his  ears  hummed  and  all  his 
senses  seemed  to  leave  him  in  his  awful  dread  of  death. 

"My  God!''  cried  Jean  Oullier,  pushing  the  inert  mass 
before  him  with  his  foot,  "my  God!  I  cannot  put  my 
knife  into  that  dead  body." 

He  looked  about  him  as  if  in  search  of  something. 

Nature  was  calm;  the  night  silent;  the  breeze  scarcely 
ruffled  the  surface  of  the  lake;  the  undulation  of  the  water 
rippled  softly  against  the  sides  of  the  boat;  nothing  was 
heard  but  the  cry  of  the  water-fowl  flying  eastward,  their 


424  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

wings  dotting  with  black  the  crimson  lines  of  the  dawn  as 
it  slowly  ascended  heavenward. 

Jean  Oullier  turned  abruptly  to  Courtin  and  shook  him 
by  the  arm. 

"  Maître  Courtin,  I  will  not  kill  you  without  taking  my 
share  of  the  danger,"  he  said.  "Maître  Courtin,  I  will 
force  you  to  defend  yourself;  if  not  against  me,  at  least 
against  death.  Death  is  coming,  it  is  here;  defend 
yourself!  " 

The  farmer  answered  only  by  a  moan.  He  rolled  his 
haggard  eyes  about  him,  but  it  was  plain  he  could  not  dis- 
tinguish the  objects  that  surrounded  him.  Death,  terri- 
ble, hideous,  menacing,  effaced  all  else. 

At  the  same  instant  Jean  Oullier  gave  a  vigorous  stamp 
with  his  heel  on  the  bottom  of  the  boat.  The  rotten 
planks  gave  way  and  the  water  entered,  boiling  and  foam- 
ing, into  the  boat. 

Courtin  was  roused  by  the  coldness  of  the  flood  as  it 
reached  him;  he  gave  an  awful  cry,  — a  cry  in  which  there 
was  nothing  human. 

"I  an  lost!  "  he  screamed. 

"It  is  God's  judgment!"  said  Jean  Oullier,  stretching 
his  arm  to  heaven.  "  Once  I  did  not  strike  you  because 
you  were  bound;  this  time,  my  hand  spares  you  again, 
Maître  Courtin.  If  your  good  angel  wants  you,  let  him 
save  you;  I  have  not  stained  my  hands  with  your  blood." 

Courtin  had  risen  while  Jean  Oullier  said  these  words, 
and  he  moved  hither  and  thither  in  the  boat,  making  the 
water  plash  about  him.  Jean  Oullier,  calm,  impassible, 
knelt  in  the  bow  and  prayed. 

The  water  came  higher  and  higher. 

"Oh,  who  will  save  me?  who  will  save  me?"  cried 
Courtin,  now  livid,  and  contemplating  with  terror  the  six 
inches  of  wood  which  alone  remained  above  the  surface  of 
the  lake. 

"God,  if  it  pleases  Him!  Your  life,  like  mine,  is  in  His 
hands  ;  let  Him  take  one  or  the  other  —  or  save,  or  con- 


FIFTY  THOUSAND  FRANCS  MAY  EMBABKASS  A  MAX.      425 

demn  us  both.     We  are  in    His  hands;  once  more,  Maître 
Courtin,  I  say  to  you,  accept  His  will." 
As  Jean  Oullier  spoke  the  boat  gave  a  lurch;  the  water 

had  reached  the  level  of  the  gunwale,  the  skiff  whirled 
once  round,  sustained  itself  for  a  second  on  the  surfine, 
and  then  slowly  sank  beneath  the  feet  of  the  two  men 
and  buried  itself  in  the  depths  of  the  lake  with  dismal 
mutterings. 

Courtin  was  dragged  down  by  the  suction  of  the  boat; 
but  he  came  to  the  surface  of  the  water,  and  his  lingers 
seized  the  second  oar,  which  floated  near  him.  This  slen- 
der bit  of  light  dry  wood  supported  him  ou  the  water  long 
enough  for  him  to  make  another  appeal  to  Jean  Oullier. 
The  latter  did  not  answer;  he  was  swimming  gently  in 
the  direction  of  the  dawn. 

"Help!  help!"  cried  the  miserable  Courtin.  "Help 
me  to  get  ashore,  Jean  Oullier,  and  I  will  give  you  all  the 
gold  I  have  upon  me!  " 

"  Throw  that  ill-gotten  gold  to  the  bottom  of  the  lake  !  " 
said  the  Vendéan,  seeing  the  farmer  buoyed  upon  the  oar. 
"That  is  your  one  chance  of  saving  your  life;  and  this 
advice  is  the  only  help  I  will  give  you  !  " 

Courtin  put  his  hand  to  the  belt;  but  drew  it  back  as 
though  his  fingers  were  burned  by  the  contact,  or  as  if  the 
Vendéan  had  commanded  him  to  rip  open  his  bowels  and 
sacrifice  his  flesh  and  blood. 

"No,  no!  "  he  murmured,  "I  can  save  it,  and  myself  too." 

He  began  to  swim;  but  he  had  neither  the  skill  nor  the 
practice  of  Jean  Oullier  in  that  exercise.  Moreover,  the 
weight  of  the  gold  upon  him  was  too  great;  at  every  stroke 
he  went  beneath  the  water,  which,  in  spite  of  him,  got  into 
his  throat.  Again  he  called  to  Jean,  but  Jean  Oullier  was 
now  a  hundred  yards  away. 

In  one  of  these  immersions,  which  lasted  longer  than 
the  others,  he  was  seized  with  a  sort  of  vertigo,  and  sud- 
denly, with  a  rapid  movement,  he  detached  the  belt.  But, 
before  letting  his  precious  gold  drop  into   the   gulf,   he 


426  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

resolved  to  handle  it,  to  feel  it  for  the  last  time;  he  did 
clasp  it,  he  did  feel  it  with  his  trembling  ringers. 

That  last  contact  with  the  metal  he  loved  decided  his 
fate;  he  could  not  resolve  to  release  his  hold  of  it;  he 
pressed  it  to  his  breast,  and  made  a  strong  movement  with 
his  feet  to  tread  the  water;  but  the  weight  of  the  upper 
part  of  his  body  burdened  with  the  coin  threw  him  off  his 
balance;  he  sank.  After  a  few  seconds  passed  under  water, 
he  rose  half  suffocated,  flung  a  curse  to  the  heaven  he  saw 
for  the  last  time,  and  then,  dragged  down  by  his  gold  as 
by  a  demon,  he  went  to  the  bottom. 

Jean  Oullier,  turning  at  that  moment,  saw  rings  upon 
the  surface  of  the  water,  —  the  last  sign  given  by  the 
mayor  of  La  Logerie  of  his  existence;  the  last  movement 
ever  made  around  him  in  the  land  of  the  living. 

The  Vendéan  raised  his  eyes  to  heaven  and  worshipped 
God  for  the  justice  of  his  decrees. 

Jean  Oullier  swam  well;  but  his  recent  wound  and  the 
fatigues  and  emotions  of  this  terrible  night  had  exhausted 
him.  When  he  was  only  a  hundred  strokes  from  the  shore 
he  felt  that  his  strength  betrayed  his  courage;  neverthe- 
less, calm  and  resolute  in  this  crucial  moment  as  he  had 
been  all  his  life,  he  resolved  to  struggle  to  the  last.  On 
he  swam. 

Soon  he  felt  a  sort  of  faintness;  his  limbs  grew  numb; 
he  fancied  a  thousand  pins  were  pricking  and  tearing  his 
flesh;  his  muscles  grew  painful;  the  blood  mounted  vio- 
lently to  his  brain,  and  a  dull,  confused  humming,  like  the 
roaring  of  the  sea  against  the  rocks,  clamored  in  his  ears; 
black  clouds  filled  with  phosphorescent  sparks  danced 
before  his  eyes  ;  he  thought  he  was  about  to  die,  and  yet 
his  limbs,  obedient  in  their  impotence,  continued  the 
motion  his  will  imposed  upon  them.     He  still  swam. 

His  eyes  closed  in  spite  of  himself;  his  limbs  now 
stiffened  entirely;  he  gave  a  last  thought  to  those  with 
whom  he  had  crossed  the  sea  of  life,  —  to  the  children,  to 
the  wife,  to  the  old  man  who  had  brightened  his   youth; 


FIFTY  THOUSAND  FRANCS  MAY  EMBARRASS  A  MAN.   427 

to  the  two  young  girls  who  had  takes  the  places  of  those 

he  loved;  he  desired  that  his  last  prayer,  like  his  last. 
thought,   should  be  of  them. 

But  at  that  instant,  and  in  spite  of  himself,  an  idea  sud- 
denly crossed  his   brain.     A  phantom  passed  before  his 

eyes;  he  saw  the  elder  Michel  bathed  in  his  blood,  dying 
on  the  mossy  ground  of  the  forest,  liaising  his  arm  from 
the  water  aloft  to  heaven  he  cried  out  :  — 

"God!  if  I  was  mistaken,  if  it  was  a  crime,  forgive  me  I 
not  in  this  world  but  the  next!  " 

Then,  as  if  that  solemn  invocation  had  exhausted  its  last. 
powers,  the  soul  seemed  to  leave  the  body,  which  floated 
inert  upon  the  current  at  the  moment  when  the  sun,  rising 
above  the  mountains  on  the  horizon,  gilded  with  its  ear- 
liest lires  the  waters  of  the  lake,  — the  same  moment  when 
Courtin,  sinking  to  the  bottom,  rendered  his  last  breath; 
the  same  moment  when  Petit-Pierre,  in  Nantes,  was  driven 
from  her  hiding-place  and  arrested. 

Michel,  in  charge  of  the  soldiers,  was  making  his  way 
to  Nantes. 

After  marching  half  an  hour  along  the  high-road,  the 
lieutenant  who  commanded  the  little  troop  came  up  to  his 
prisoner. 

"Monsieur,"  he  said,  "you  look  like  a  gentleman;  I 
have  the  honor  to  be  one  myself.  It  pains  me  to  see  you 
handcuffed.  Will  you  give  me  your  word  of  honor  not  to 
escape  if  T  release  you  ?  " 

"Gladly,"  said  Michel;  "and  I  thank  you,  monsieur, 
swearing  to  you  that  no  matter  from  what  direction  sue©  r 
may  come  to  me,  I  will  not  leave  your  side  without 
your  permission." 

After  this  they  continued  their  way,  arm  in  arm;  so 
that  any  one  who  met  them  would  little  have  suspected 
that  one  was  a  prisoner. 

The  night  was  fine,  the  sunrise  splendid;  all  the  flowers, 
moist  with   dew,  sparkled   like  diamonds;   the   air  was  full 


428  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

of  sweetest  fragrance;  the  birds  were  singing  in  the 
branches.  This  march  to  Nantes  was  really  a  delightful 
promenade. 

When  they  reached  the  extremity  of  the  lake  of  Grand- 
Lieu  the  lieutenant  stopped  his  prisoner,  with  whom  he 
had  advanced  fully  half  a  mile  beyond  the  escort,  and 
pointing  to  a  black  mass,  which  was  floating  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  water,  about  fifty  feet  from  the  shore,  he  asked 
him  what  he  thought  it  was. 

"It  looks  like  the  body  of  a  man,"  answered  Michel. 

"  Can  you  swim  ?  " 

"A  little." 

"Ah,  if  I  knew  how  to  swim  I  'd  be  in  the  water  now," 
said  the  officer,  sighing,  and  turning  as  if  to  call  up  his 
men. 

Michel  waited  for  nothing  more;  he  ran  to  the  bank, 
threw  off  his  clothes,  and  jumped  into  the  lake.  A  few 
instants  later  he  brought  to  shore  a  body  he  had  already 
recognized  as  that  of  Jean  Oullier. 

During  this  time  the  soldiers  had  come  up,  and  they  at 
once  set  to  work  to  revive  the  drowning  man.  One  of 
them  took  out  his  flask,  and  prying  open  the  Vendean's 
teeth  poured  a  few  drops  of  brandy  into  his  mouth. 

This  revived  him.  His  first  glance  fell  on  Michel,  who 
was  holding  his  head,  and  such  an  expression  of  anguish 
came  upon  his  face  that  the  lieutenant  noticed  and  mis- 
took it. 

"This  is  the  man  who  saved  you,  my  friend,"  he  said, 
pointing  to  Michel. 

"Saved  me!  he!  his  son!"  exclaimed  Jean  Oullier. 
"Ah!  I  thank  thee,  0  God,  who  art  wonderful  in  thy 
mercy  as  thou  art  terrible  in  thy  justice  !  " 


EPiLOm  k.  4-!9 


EPILOGUE. 

Toward  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  a  day  in  the  year 
lS-li',  ten  years  after  the  events  we  have  here  recorded,  a 
heavy  carriage  stopped  before  the  gate  of  the  Carmelite 
convent  at  Chartres. 

The  carriage  contained  five  persons:  two  children  eight 
and  nine  years  old,  a  gentleman  and  lady,  — the  first  about 
thirty-five,  the  second  thirty,  —  and  a  peasant,  bent  with 
age  but  still  vigorous  in  spite  of  his  white  hair.  Although 
his  dress  was  humble,  this  peasant  occupied  the  seat  besidt: 
the  lady;  one  of  the  children  was  sitting  on  his  knee  and 
playing  with  the  rings  of  a  thick  steel  chain  which  fastened 
his  watch  to  the  button-hole  of  his  waistcoat,  while  he 
himself  passed  his  brown  and  shrivelled  hand  through  the 
silky  hair  of  the  little  one. 

At  the  jar  of  the  carriage,  as  it  turned  from  the  paved 
high-road  into  the  faubourg  Saint-Jean,  the  lady  put  her 
head  out  of  the  window;  then  she  drew  it  back  with  an 
expression  of  pain  as  she  saw  the  high  walls  that  sur- 
rounded the  convent,  and  the  gloomy  portal  which  gave 
entrance  to  it. 

The  postilion  dismounted,  and  going,  to  the  door  of  the 
carriage  said:  — 

"This  is  the  place." 

The  lady  pressed  the  hand  of  her  husband,  who  was 
seated  opposite  to  her,  while  two  large  tears  rolled  down 
her  cheeks. 

"Go,  Mary,  and  take  courage,"  said  the  young  man,  in 
whom   our    readers    will    recognize    Baron     Michel    (]<■    la 


430  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

Logerie.  "I  regret  that  the  couvent  rules  will  not  let  me 
share  this  duty  with  you.  It  is  the  first  time  in  ten  years 
we  have  suffered  apart." 

"  You  will  speak  to  her  of  me,  will  you  not  ?  "  said  the 
old  peasant. 

"Yes,  my  Jean,"  answered  Mary. 

The  young  woman  sprang  from  the  carriage  and  knocked 
at  the  gate.  The  sound  of  the  knocker  gave  a  funeral 
note,  which  echoed  through  the  vaulted  portal. 

"  Mère  Sainte-Marthe  ?  "  said  the  lady  when  her  sum- 
mons was  answered. 

"  Are  you  the  person  our  mother  is  expecting  ?  "  asked 
the  Carmelite. 

"Yes,  sister." 

"Then  come  in.  You  shall  see  her;  but  remember,  our 
rule  requires  that,  although  she  is  oar  Superior,  you  can 
see  her  only  in  presence  of  a  sister;  and  she  forbids  you 
absolutely  to  speak  to  her,  even  in  these  last  moments,  of 
the  earthly  things  she  has  left  behind  her." 

Mary  bowed  her  head. 

The  Carmelite  went  first  and  conducted  the  Baronne  de 
la  Logerie  along  a  damp,  dark  corridor,  in  which  were  a 
dozen  doors;  she  opened  one  of  these  doors  and  stood  aside 
to  allow  the  lady  to  enter.  Mary  hesitated  an  instant;  she 
was  choking  with  emotion;  then  she  regained  her  self- 
command,  crossed  the  threshold,  and  found  herself  in  a 
little  cell  about  eight  feet  square. 

In  this  cell,  for  all  furniture,  was  a  bed,  a  chair,  and  a 
prie-dieu;  for  all  ornament,  a  few  holy  images  fastened  to 
the  bare  walls,  and  an  ebony  and  brass  crucifix,  which 
stretched  out  its  arms  above  the  prie-dieu. 

Mary  saw  nothing  of  all  that.  On  the  bed  lay  a  woman 
whose  face  had  taken  the  color  and  the  transparency  of 
wax,  and  whose  discolored  lips  seemed  about  to  exhale 
their  parting  breath. 

This  woman  was,  or  rather,  had  been  Bertha.  She  was 
now  naught  else  than  the  Mère  Sainte-Marthe,  superior  of 


EPILOGUE.  431 

the  couvent  of  the  Carmelites  at  Chartres,  —  soon  to  be  only 
a  corpse. 

When  she  saw  the  lady  enter  the  dying  woman  stretched 
forth  her  arms,  and  Mary  fled  to  them.  Long  they  held 
themselves  embraced;  Mary  bathing  with  tears  her  sister's 
face,  Bertha  gasping,  —  for  in  her  eyes,  hollowed  by  the 
austerities  of  the  cloister,  there  seemed  to  be  no  more  tears. 

The  Carmelite  sister,  who  had  seated  herself  on  the 
chair  and  was  reading  her  breviary,  was,  however,  not  so 
occupied  with  her  prayers  that  she  did  uot  notice  what  was 
passing  before  her.  She  probably  thought  these  embraces 
were  lasting  too  long,  for  she  coughed  significantly. 

Mère  Sainte-Marthe  gently  pushed  Mary  away  from  her, 
but  did  not  release  her  hand,  which  she  held  in  hers. 

"Sister!  sister!"  murmured  Mary,  "who  could  have 
told  me  we  should  meet  thus  ?  " 

"It  is  God's  will,  to  which  we  must  submit,"  replied  the 
Carmelite  mother. 

"His  will  is  sometimes  very  stern,"  sighed  Mary. 

"  How  can  you  say  so,  sister  ?  That  will  is  gentle  and 
most  merciful  to  me.  God,  who  might  have  left  me  longer 
on  this  earth,  deigns  to  recall  me  to  Him." 

"  You  will  meet  our  father  above,  "  said  Mary. 

"  And  whom  do  I  leave  behind  me  ?  " 

"  Our  good  Jean  Oullier,  who  lives  and  loves  you  always, 
Bertha." 

"Thank  you;  and  whom  else?" 

"My  husband, — and  two  children,  who  are  named,  the 
boy,  Pierre,  the  girl,  Bertha.  I  have  taught  them  to  bless 
you  daily." 

A  faint  color  came  upon  the  cheeks  of  the  dying  woman. 

"Dear  children!"  she  murmured,  "if  God  grants  me  a 
place  beside  Him,  I  promise  to  pray  for  them  above." 

And  the  dying  soul  began  on  earth  the  prayer  it  was  to 
end  in  heaven. 

In  the  midst  of  that  prayer  and  in  the  silence  of  that 
cell,  the  striking  of  a  clock  was  heard,  then  the  tinkling  of 


432  THE    LAST   VENDÉE. 

a  bell,  and  the  sound  of  feet  approaching  along  the  corri- 
dor.    They  were  bringing  the  viaticum. 

Mary  fell  on  her  knees  by  Bertha's  pillow.  The  priest 
entered,  holding  the  sacred  chalice  in  his  left  hand,  and  in 
his  right  the  consecrated  wafer. 

At  this  moment  Mary  felt  the  hand  of  Bertha  seeking 
hers  ;  for  the  purpose,  as  she  thought,  of  pressing  it.  She 
was  mistaken  ;  Bertha  slipped  into  her  sister's  hand  an  object 
which  she  felt  to  be  a  locket.     She  tried  to  look  at  it. 

"No  no,"  said  Bertha,  "wait  till  I  am  dead." 

Mary  made  a  sign  of  obedience  and  bowed  her  head  upon 
her  clasped  hands. 

The  cell  was  now  filled  with  nuns,  all  kneeling;  and  as 
far  as  could  be  seen  along  the  corridor  were  others  in  their 
gloomy  robes  kneeling  and  praying. 

The  dying  woman  seemed  to  recover  some  strength  with 
which  to  go  into  the  presence  of  her  Creator;  she  lifted 
herself  up,  murmuring  :  — 

"  I  am  ready,  my  God  !  " 

The  priest  laid  the  wafer  on  her  lips,  and  she  fell  back 
gently  on  the  bed  with  closed  eyes  and  clasped  hands. 
Except  for  the  motion  of  her  lips,  she  seemed  to  have  died, 
so  pale  was  her  face,  so  feeble  the  breath  that  issued  from 
her  bosom. 

The  priest  concluded  the  other  ceremonies  of  the  extreme 
unction,  but  she  did  not  open  her  eyes.  He  left  the  cell, 
and  the  assistants  followed  him. 

The  Carmelite  nun,  who  had  first  met  Mary,  now  came 
to  her  where  she  knelt,  and  touching  her  gently  on  the 
shoulder,  said  :  — 

"  My  sister,  the  rule  of  our  order  forbids  that  you  should 
stay  any  longer  in  this  cell." 

"Bertha!  Bertha!"  said  Mary,  sobbing,  "do  you  hear 
what  they  say  to  me?  My  God!  after  living  together 
twenty  years  without  being  parted  for  a  single  day,  and 
then  separated  for  eleven  years, — not  to  be  allowed  one 
hour  together  when  we  are  parting  for  eternity!" 


EPIL0G1  K. 

•  Fou  m  13  stay  in  the  house  until  I  am  dead,  my  bj 

and  it  will  make  me  happy  to  think  you  are  mar  me  and 
praying  for  me." 

Mary  bent  down  to  kiss  her  dying  sister  for  the  last 
time,  but  the  nun  interposed.  Baying:  — 

"Do  not  turn  our  blessed  mother's  mind  from  the  ci 
tial  path  she  now  has  entered,  by  vain,  earthly  thoughts." 

'•()]),  I  will  not  leave  her  thus!"  cried  .Mary,  flinging 
herself  on  Bertha's  bed  and  putting  her  lips  to  those  of 
her  sister.  Bertha's  lips  replied  by  a  feeble  quiver,  then 
she  gently  pushed  her  sister  away  from  her.  But  the  hand 
that  made  this  motion  had  no  power  to  rejoin  the  other. 
and  it  fell  inert  upon  the  bed. 

The  nun  advanced,  and  without  a  tear,  without  a  Bigh, 
without  a  sign  of  emotion  upon  her  face,  she  took  that 
dying  hand,  joined  it  to  the  other,  and  laid  them  clasped 
upon  Bertha's  breast.  Then  she  gently  pushed  Mary  to 
the  door. 

"Oh,  Bertha!  Bertha!"  cried  her  sister,  breaking  into 
sobs. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  a  murmur  echoed  back  these  sobs, 
and  in  that  murmur  she  fancied  that  she  heard  the  name 
of  "  Mary  !  " 

She  was  in  the  corridor;  the  door  of  the  cell  was  closed 
behind  her. 

"  Oh,  let  me  see  her  !  "  she  cried.  "  Let  me  see  her  once 
more,  —  only  once  !  " 

But  the  nun  stretched  out  lier  arms  and  barred  the  way. 

"I  submit,"  said  Mary,  blinded  by  her  tears.  "Take 
me  where  you  choose,  sister." 

The  nun  led  her  to  an  empty  cell,  the  occupant  of  which 
had  died  the  night  before.  Mary  saw  through  her  tears  a 
prie-dieu  surmounted  by  a  crucifix,  and  she  went,  half 
stumbling,  to  kneel  there. 

For  an  hour  she  remained  absorbed  in  prayer.     At   th 
end  of  an  hour  the  nun  returned  and  said,  in  the  Bame  odd 
impassible  voice:  — 
vol.  ii.  —  28 


434  THE   LAST   VENDÉE. 

"Mère  Sainte-Marthe  is  dead." 

"  May  I  see  her  ?  "  asked  Mary. 

"The  rule  of  our  order  forbids  it,"  replied  the  Car- 
melite. 

Mary  dropped  her  head  into  her  hands  with  a  sigh. 
One  of  those  hands  still  clasped  the  object  Bertha  had 
given  her  at  the  moment  she  was  about  to  receive,  for  the 
last  time,  the  blessed  sacrament.  Mère  Sainte-Marthe 
was  dead,  and  Mary  was  free  to  look  at  what  she  had 
given  her. 

It  was,  as  she  knew  already  from  its  shape,  a  locket. 
Mary  opened  it.  It  contained  some  hair  and  a  paper. 
The  hair  was  the  color  of  Michel's  hair;  the  paper  con- 
tained these  words  :  "  Cut  during  his  sleep  on  the  night  of 
June  5,  1832." 

"  0,  my  God  !  "  murmured  Mary,  raising  her  eyes  to  the 
crucifix,  "  0  my  God  !  in  thy  mercy  receive  her  !  for  thy 
passion  lasted  but  forty  days,  and  hers  has  lasted  eleven 
years  !  " 

Putting  the  locket  upon  her  heart,  Mary  went  down  the 
cold,  damp  stairway  of  the  convent. 

The  carriage  and  those  it  contained  were  still  waiting 
before  the  gate. 

"  Well  ?  "  asked  Michel,  opening  the  door  and  making 
a  step  toward  his  wife. 

"Alas,  it  is  all  over!"  replied  Mary,  throwing  herself 
into  his  arms.     "She  died  promising  to  pray  for  us  above." 

"  Happy  children  !  "  said  Jean  Oullier,  laying  his  hands, 
one  on  the  head  of  the  little  boy,  the  other  on  that  of  the 
little  girl.  "  Happy  children  !  walk  fearlessly  through  life, 
for  a  martyr  watches  over  you  in  heaven  !  " 


THE   END. 


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